PETER CROUCH: Liverpool and Man United are on different levels now

At the end of my first season at Liverpool, I had a sense of anticipation that was different to anything I've experienced in my career.

The standout achievement of that opening 12 months was winning the FA Cup but the league table was what made me excited for the seasons to come. We had come third with 82 points, one place and one point behind Manchester United.

Liverpool had only finished ahead of United once in the previous 14 years but, as 2005-06 drew to a close with an 11-game winning sequence, it felt as if we had put a hand on their shoulders.

Rafa Benitez had assembled an excellent squad and I believed that, come the end of 2007, we would be champions.

Pulling alongside United, however, was a world away from overtaking them. In the next campaign, they beat us at Old Trafford and Anfield.

Just thinking about the defeat at home, when John O'Shea scored in the last minute after we had battered them, makes me squirm to this day.

It would be United who took the title off Chelsea. We finished third again but this time Sir Alex Ferguson, with his forward line of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, had seen his side turn a one-point difference into a 21-point chasm.

That, pretty much, is the story of how things have been in the Premier League for these two clubs. Liverpool, in 25 years, have finished in a better position than United on only three occasions, and never managed the feat in consecutive seasons.

This gives you an idea of how United have dominated. They are the biggest club in the country for a reason and it was down to Ferguson being able to add the highest quality to an established group of winners that they kept being able to go again.

What I have seen over the last six months, though, makes me think the power is shifting in this particular battle.

At the start of 2018, after Stoke had played United, I thought United would establish themselves as the main threat to Manchester City.

But Liverpool's form through the calendar year has been relentless and they look to be hitting a peak in time for the Premier League's biggest fixture; no other game — and no other rivalry — matches this one in England and I say that with the benefit of experience.

That first season I was a Liverpool player, we faced United three times. At Old Trafford, Rio Ferdinand scored a last-minute winner and I remember watching Gary Neville charge towards our supporters to give them stick. Everything about that day was horrible.

Back at Anfield in the FA Cup was like nothing I had ever known. You hear people talk about games having an edge but this was different. It was nasty, genuine hatred from all sides of the ground. It's not just about two clubs, it's about two cities that are so different but are also so similar.

I scored that day and people still talk to me about it now when I go to Liverpool. It was a scruffy goal, a header that sneaked past Edwin van der Sar, but the eruption that greeted it was extraordinary.

Whoever scores for Liverpool on Sunday — and they haven't managed to get a goal against United at Anfield in the last three Premier League meetings — will find the noise comparable; it is a clash that makes heroes and there is so much at stake.

United's start to the season has amazed me. Jose Mourinho is a top manager but his team's lack of consistency will be driving him crazy and I'm not sure his best plans will be able to stop Liverpool.

Liverpool look the real deal under Jurgen Klopp. They have backed up reaching the Champions League final with one of the best starts to a season in history and, in a normal year, they would now be odds-on favourites to win the title.

City, of course, will have something to say about that, but it's fair to say that Liverpool are at a different level to United at the moment in terms of how they have shaped their squad and the potential they have.

History has shown that Liverpool have not been able to capitalise on positions of authority over United before — the year after finishing runners-up in 2014, Liverpool slumped to sixth, with United finishing fourth — but things feel different.

The impetus is with Liverpool now in this rivalry. It is up to them to make it count.

Racism in the stands... but never the dressing room

I am not going to suggest I have an answer for how we eliminate racism in society. All I can do here is talk about some of the things I have experienced in my career and tell you what I have seen.

The worst episode of racism I encountered was in Eastern Europe playing for England's Under 21s. Shola Ameobi and Shaun Wright-Phillips were on the receiving end from the whole stadium and it was an abysmal experience.

Shola, to his great credit, treated his abusers with total disdain.

I cannot say how widespread racism around stadiums is but what I do know is that it hasn't existed in any of the dressing rooms I have played in.

In there, everyone is equal and you make judgments on how people play — not how they look. That, I believe, is how it will always be.

Is everyone viewed equally from the stands? I don't know and I've thought about something Gary Neville said about Ashley Cole now being a 'footballing refugee'.

Ashley was an England colleague of mine and he was genuinely world-class, a player who hit eight or nine out of 10 each time he played.

But the way he was booed when playing for England suggested there was some underlying ill-feeling towards him. People will say it stems from the money he asked for when he was playing for Arsenal but, be honest, he was not the only man to have contractual issues.

Were people resentful of him? Ashley, I must stress, never said anything to us. If he felt there was something sinister behind his treatment, he didn't speak about it to the group. He just got on with it in the face of the booing and the shouting.

And that is something I have never understood — why people behave in such an aggressive way once they step into a football ground.

I've been screamed at all my life from the stands for the way I look and it will never change.

You look at some people when they swear at you and make gestures, and know that if you met each other on the street, they would ask for a selfie or an autograph. So why is there such a big change when you put on a different coloured kit?

Nobody of fair mind will ever understand.

Moura magic in Barcelona saved Spurs campaign

With all respect to Liverpool, Tottenham produced the week's standout performance in Europe. I know people have been going on about Lionel Messi starting as a substitute but it was still a magnificent effort to go to the Nou Camp and have more possession than Barcelona.

To then come back from a goal down to pinch an equaliser was a brilliant effort and it should not be underestimated how critical it is to their season.

If Tottenham do not spend in January, I would have had deep concerns about the Thursday-Sunday routine hurting their top-four push.

Lucas Moura's late equaliser, then, had an added spin-off. It saved their campaign.

Mentally, Tottenham's players would have been shattered about falling out of the best competition and physically they would have become drained by having to contest the Europa League.

Mauricio Pochettino now knows where he is working and the added bonus is that the new White Hart Lane should be ready for a massive night in the new year.

I make no secret about how much I love watching Spurs I'm delighted they've reached their first major target.

There have been occasions when change has been introduced and my gut feeling has been proven totally wrong.

I never wanted the old Division One to become the Premier League, I didn't want to see the back-pass rule introduced — and I hated the idea of more than two substitutes.

All those initiatives, of course, enhanced football.

I'm not sure, though, the FA Cup will be enhanced by having only 10 matches kick off at 3pm on a Saturday in the third round. I understand what TV has done for our game but I don't get why 22 matches have been shifted from the traditional start time.

Each year it feels like something else is done to dilute its significance. The competition will never be as it was when I was a kid — the FA Cup final was bigger than the European Cup final — but the last thing I want to see is it become the same as the League Cup.

I still get a buzz when the first weekend of January approaches and I cannot wait for our game at Shrewsbury.

But that is scheduled for a 12.30pm kick-off and it won't have the same feeling as it would at 3pm. To play in the FA Cup is special. I don't ever want it to lose its magic.