“We have a neighbour, and sometimes neighbours are noisy, but you can’t do anything about them,” said Sir Alex Ferguson in 2009, when Manchester United were champions of England and fought their squabbles with Europe’s elite, not the blue-shirted big mouths next door.
Fourteen years on, Manchester City are the greatest team in world football and, if that was not enough, their Champions League triumph on Saturday brought a deafening end to their red rival’s claim to be the only English club to have won the coveted treble.
