Trent Alexander-Arnold is right: Jurgen Klopp winning another Premier League title with Liverpool would overshadow Pep Guardiola's Man City achievements

Ruben Dias and Erling Haaland have already issued biting replies to Alexander-Arnold's comments, pointing out that the right-back has no idea how it feels to win a treble. The thing is, though, there is an element of truth in what Alexander-Arnold is saying. Not about what the titles mean to the fans, of course.

The City supporters who remember the nightmare of relegation to the third tier of English football are now revelling in a beautiful dream. Each and every trophy must feel so unbelievable and, therefore, so precious. However, there is simply no denying that certain victories are more valuable than others. It has ever been thus in football.

Francesco Totti always insisted that he was never in the least bit jealous of Juventus' success during his playing days, and still has no regrets over remaining at Roma for the duration of his professional career, because one Scudetto with his hometown club was "worth 10 elsewhere".

Kylian Mbappe, by contrast, is closing in on a sixth Ligue 1 title in his native Paris - yet the championship he won with Monaco will forever be a far more significant achievement given PSG's dominance of French football for well over a decade.

And surely even Liverpool fans would admit that their first English top-flight title for 30 years was no more special than Napoli's long-awaited Serie A win last season - and that neither feat compares to Leicester City's Premier League miracle of 2016?

The point is that when it comes to appraising success, context is always key, which is why Sunday's latest meeting between Liverpool and Manchester City is so important. Legacies are on the line at Anfield.

This is no title-decider, of course. It's too tight at the top of the table to make such a lofty claim at this stage of the season, particularly when there are more than 10 rounds remaining and a third team in play, with Arsenal likely to end the day at the summit of the standings if Liverpool and City play out a draw for the second time this season.

Nonetheless, the victor at Anfield would undeniably benefit from a massive amount of momentum, which could well prove decisive given both sides are flying as it is.

Liverpool won the first major trophy of the season, the Carabao Cup, in extraordinary circumstances, with the injury-ravaged Reds defeating Chelsea "billion-pound bottle jobs" with a selection of "Jurgen Klopp's kids".

However, if the return of the "mentality monsters" is a terrifying prospect for Liverpool's rivals, then so too is the sight of Pep Guardiola's winning "machine" once again clicking into gear at the business end of the season.

City's current 20-match unbeaten run stretches all the way back to December, making a mockery of Guardiola's claim that his stellar squad has next to no hope of winning a second-consecutive treble. It is not only possible; it is actually probable.

City are just a point behind Liverpool in the Premier League table (with a more favourable fixture list), are the clear favourites to win the Champions League and face Newcastle in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. History is there for the taking.

Of course, Liverpool are also attempting something unique: a quadruple. In truth, it still appears a distant dream, given the state of their squad (Alexander-Arnold, Diogo Jota and Alisson Becker are among several senior stars still sidelined by injury). But the Premier League is clearly a realistic goal - and a hugely important one at that.

Whether victory would mean more to Liverpool or City fans is highly debatable. Liverpool may have only won one Premier League title but past comments from Pep and his players has underlined that City would undoubtedly derive as much pleasure from denying their greatest rivals another title as winning an unprecedented fourth in a row.

What's also clear, though, is that Klopp winning a second Premier League would see him bid farewell to Anfield having unquestionably surpassed Guardiola's achievements at the Etihad. That may sound strange, when one considers that Klopp will leave Liverpool having won fewer trophies than Guardiola - no matter what happens between now and the end of the season.

But it's true, given the disparity in resources and the very stark contrast in starting points.

Klopp arrived at a club in crisis that had never actually won the Premier League and inherited a shockingly poor squad from Brendan Rodgers containing the likes of Christian Benteke, Joe Allen and Steven Caulker. Through almost flawless recruitment, genius man-management and sheer force of personality, he transformed Liverpool into the champions of everything.

Guardiola, by complete contrast, took over a team that had won the title two years previously and was greeted at the Etihad by Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero and David Silva, as well as a host of familiar faces from his time at Barcelona that had been patiently awaiting his arrival.

Thanks to a bottomless well of Abu Dhabi money, Guardiola's former colleagues had constructed a club in the Catalan's image. This wasn't just fantasy football, it was made-to-order management. Success was inevitable, it was only ever a question of when it would arrive - and the only surprise surrounding Guardiola's time at the Etihad is that it took so long for City to conquer Europe.

Money has never been an issue, after all. Whereas Liverpool's rise to the top was greatly aided by an almost flawless record in the transfer market, City could afford to make mistakes. £100 million ($129m) signings like Jack Grealish and Josko Gvardiol can be just left on the bench until they are ready to make a contribution. There's always another international waiting in the wings to take their place.

Liverpool have made some big-money signings themselves under Klopp - but usually funded by smartly-timed sales, while there has never been any doubt over where the money has come from.

The Fenway Sports Group are not universally loved at Anfield - primarily because of their perceived parsimony, with the attempt to avail of the British government's furloughing scheme during the pandemic a particularly shameful move by the American owners that was only reversed because of a bitter fan backlash.

Credit where it's due, though, FSG has never allowed Liverpool to fall foul of UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations or the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

Some rival supporters have tried to argue that Liverpool's title win in 2020 shouldn't count because the final stages of the season were played out behind closed doors but there's no doubt that they deserved to win a league that they had been utterly dominating before the pandemic-enforced suspension of play.

Indeed, it is City's titles that now carry with them an invisible asterisk that won't go away unless the club beats the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League.

There are no question marks over Klopp's cups, though. He and his team may not be universally liked but they are, at least, respected, and if they were to win another title in this era of sustained City success, it would not just represent the perfect send-off for Klopp, it would rank as his greatest-ever achievement.

Remember, he has already said that the Carabao Cup win was the "most special" trophy of his career because of the circumstances surrounding the game. Dethroning treble-winning City as champions of England would be on a whole other level - particularly as this was supposed to be a season for transition at Anfield.

People will still point to trophy tallies, of course, but Guardiola has won the Bundesliga more times than Klopp and yet nobody in their right mind would argue that Pep's three-in-row at Bayern Munich was anywhere near as significant as Borussia Dortmund's back-to-back titles.

It's a similar story in England - and Guardiola knows it, too, having repeatedly pointed out in the past that City's triumphs are not greeted with anything like the same fanfare as Liverpool's. Why? Because they're expected.

City deserve great credit for the way in which they have constructed a winning machine; they are the model that all other super-clubs should follow. After all, as Paris Saint-Germain have proven, it's one thing having copious amounts of money, spending it wisely is quite another.

But City's treble was no fairy tale, it was a formality; the logical conclusion of an historic amount of investment by a wealthy Gulf state into a local enterprise. By contrast, Klopp has managed to not just compete with the finest team England's top flight has ever seen, but also occasionally beat them.

In that sense, his tenure can already been considered incredible, and another title would make it truly extraordinary. Guardiola has won many things at the Etihad - and in sublime style too - but context really is key and, just like Totti's single Scudetto or Leicester's solitary title, what Klopp has achieved at Anfield just means more.