The Liverpool vs Manchester United rivalry is widely regarded as the biggest and most iconic in English football. It’s built on decades of success, fierce competition, and deep-rooted cultural tension between two proud cities. While English football has no shortage of rivalries, few come close to matching the global reach and historical weight of what’s often called the North-West Derby.

For me, this rivalry goes back a long way. Even when I was at junior school in Cambridge in the late 1970s — long before the Premier League even existed — you were either Liverpool or Man United. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground, even though Cambridge is nowhere near either city. That sense of division says a lot about how powerful this rivalry has always been. Its roots stretch even further back, into 19th-century industrial and cultural competition between Liverpool and Manchester — long before football became the global spectacle it is today.

Manchester United has the better overall record in terms of head to head victories, at least up until now. Liverpool and Manchester United have faced each other 67 times in top flight Premier League matches since their first head to head on the 18-Oct-1992. Liverpool has won 20 times, with 12 of those victories coming at home. Manchester United has won 30 times, including 13 away victories. The teams have drawn 17 times. Across all their meetings, Liverpool has scored 92 goals, while Manchester United has netted 87.