Manchester United Manager Louis van Gaal taunted the “noisy neighbours” (CC Sir Alex Ferguson) on Manchester Derby Eve. The Iron Tulip says it will be a long time before the current Premier League champions can consider themselves as one of the genuinely big clubs. City supporters like to think of themselves as the true team for the people who live in Manchester, and look down on United supporters. They cast Red Devils fans as tourists from the rest of the world (but not Manchester and Trafford).
Likewise United fans look down on the Citizens as being upstarts, and a small club for most of their history.
Van Gaal when asked if United is much bigger than City
“I think so. Abroad we have more fans and followers on social media. So it’s like that. Also Bayern Munich is also the biggest club of Germany. The same thing for Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. It takes a long time for City to reach that level.”
The latest polls show that United have 670,000,000 fans worldwide to City’s 15,000,000.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini rebuffed Van Gaal’s statement, insisting United’s proudest moments were “past history”
“[City] has won two of last three titles and the other one was runner-up. They [United] have a lot of past history. Maybe football is in the present and in the last two or three years this team is doing better.”
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