Liverpool fans cheer during the Carling Cup final against Chelsea at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff - the last encounter between the two teams. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
"We will all be Liverpool fans tonight," suggests the trail for Stephen Moss's among the natives piece in today's G2. I beg to differ. There will be more than a few people out there rooting for Jose Mourinho's mercenaries as they take on the Rafa Benitez's Reds in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final tonight and they won't all be new laddish mockney types with "loadsamoney" sensibilities or housewives in lust with the smouldering Portuguese.
Roman Abramovich's billions have infused the former widespread throwaway distaste for Chelsea with a strong strain of dread or simple jealousy, to the point where many so-called neutral fans appear ready to regard them as evil incarnate. This kind of thinking seems to be the spur behind Moss's purported desire to mix it with the punters at Dickie Lewis's and thereby "join the red army".
The amounts of money at Chelsea's disposal has given a forceful tilt to the playing field in the Premiership and further blunted its competitive edge, but certain long-suffering fans nurse a glow of schadenfreude when they see clubs like Manchester United suddenly on the receiving end of the destabilising effect caused by the perennial prospect of their best players being whisked away.
Other will be unconvinced by the idea proffered in Moss's piece of Liverpool Football Club as some kind of bastion of moral superiority, with its "honour and honesty" and embarrassment about wealth. They will wonder if he is overlooking the club's flirtation with Thaksin Shinawatra last year. The Thai prime minister, it seemed, was keen to commit public funds that could have been spent on feeding and clothing his country's poor in order to join the quest to bring major silverware to Anfield.
Also among those rooting for Roman's legion will be fans of Everton and Bolton, who both find their clubs locked with Liverpool in what could be a fruitless sprint finish to the end of the season. All three clubs proceeded on the assumption that finishing fourth in the Premiership would gain them a run at the financial feeding trough that is the Champions League, but now the FA could be left with a very tricky decision if Liverpool build a strong own case for qualification next year by winning the European competition. Uefa, European football's governing body, is saying only four English clubs can enter, no matter what.
In all truth, Everton supporters would probably be cheering Chelsea on in any case, as they firmly qualify as the lesser of two evils when set against their fellow Blues' city rivals. Indeed, Moss might even find a few glasses of red wine with ice being raised across his adoptive city if Jose "after God, me" Mourinho wins out.
