"The greatest achievement in my life is to kick Liverpool off its fucking throne." This famous saying should have been said by Ferguson in an interview with the media in 2002. This sentence has also been used by countless Manchester United players. The fans are proud.
But, was Liverpool really kicked off the throne by Manchester United?
Ferguson took over Manchester United in November 1986. At that time, Liverpool had won eight league titles in 11 years and several Champions League titles. It was a veritable overlord of England. However, after the Heysel tragedy, at this time We are approaching the end of Liverpool's dominance. In the years before and after Ferguson took office, it was Everton who challenged Liverpool and defeated Liverpool to win two league championships in 1984-85 and 1986-87.
But the centipede did not die, and Liverpool regained two more league titles in the 1985-86 and 1987-88 seasons. After that, Arsenal began to take over the role of challenger. Arsenal won two championships in 1988-89 and 1990-91. Both times they defeated Liverpool. The championship in the middle season was still Liverpool. In the meantime, Manchester United has never launched any challenge to Liverpool's throne. Although Manchester United finished second in the league in the 1989-90 season and achieved the best ranking in the league in more than ten years, the point difference with the eventual champion Liverpool was nearly 10 points, which did not pose a threat to Liverpool's championship.
The season when Arsenal won the championship in 1990-91 was the last time Liverpool entered the championship competition. It was not until the 2008-09 season nearly 20 years later that Liverpool once again had the strength to compete for the championship. Of course, this time That year was the final defeat to Ferguson's Manchester United.
After that, Leeds United won the last English League One championship, and Liverpool fell to sixth in the Premier League that season. Later, in the first year of the Premier League, Manchester United won the first Premier League championship and began to take over the dominance of English football.
Looking back on this journey, we can see that Liverpool was not kicked off the throne by Ferguson at all. The real situation is that after Liverpool experienced the Heysel tragedy and the Hillsborough tragedy, and then He began to decline due to his own reasons and fell off the throne. A few years later, Manchester United began to dominate and could be said to have taken over the dominance of English football. However, Ferguson never challenged the dominant Liverpool team even once as a challenger, let alone a successful challenge. From the mid-to-late 1980s when Liverpool began to decline, to the 1999 Triple Crown, which marked the confirmation of Manchester United's dominance in England, during the entire process of this takeover, Ferguson's Manchester United never had a championship rivalry with Liverpool.
On the contrary, Everton and Arsenal respectively completed the challenge to Liverpool and succeeded twice each.