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One thing is for sure – Manchester City 's success is bringing out the split personalities of rival fans!

We have seen it in the last few days, as the Blues have been selling tickets for the Champions Leaguer quarter-finals against Liverpool – which have now all gone.

Liverpool fans have been joined in an unholy alliance by United fans in sneering at 'ickle Ciddy' and their inability to sell out such a huge game within nano-seconds of the tickets being released for sale.

Ignoring the fact that City graded the way they sold tickets, so that certain brands of season ticket holders got first stab, and then new batches were released depending on the number of 'loyalty points' they had, the criticisms are massively hypocritical.

Focusing on the Liverpool and United fans who have been all over social media, desperately trying to ridicule City, the snipers split into two camps.

The first lot are just hilarious, typically represented by a United fan from Limerick, who decided to poke fun at City for not selling out in a heartbeat.

After some quizzing by City fans, he revealed that he had never actually been to Old Trafford because you can never get tickets – which came as news to everyone, including the Old Trafford ticket office.

Such fools get the derision they deserve, but there is another breed, of genuine, match-going Reds – Merseysiders and Mancs – who have developed something of a split personality over this issue.

They spend half of their lives whinging about the number of tourists who show up at their stadiums, taking tickets out of the hands of local fans, and ensuring prices remain high by driving up demand.

This comes from the fact that United and Liverpool, between them, have dominated English football, and have had plenty of success in Europe, over the last 40 years, naturally.

United fans have even developed acronyms for this species of fan, often seen clutching United megastore shopping bags and watching the match through the lens of their phone camera – the are OOTs (Out of Towners) or JCLs (Johnny Come Latelys).

Old school Reds despise this breed of fan, and understandably so. When you struggle to get a ticket for Southampton away, and some of your loyal mates don't get one, and then you find a whole section of the away end taken up by Tokyo Reds, attending their first game, you are bound to be miffed.

It's the same on Merseyside, where a couple of years ago one loyal Liverpool fan bemoaned the lack of atmosphere at Anfield, and claimed it is 'what happens when clubs prioritise glory-hunting tourists instead of local kids'.

He is right, of course, and his words will have struck a chord among genuine supporters at both ends of the East Lancs Road – indeed, anywhere in the world.

But the same fans who moan about the out of towners are perfectly happy to count them among the numbers when they fill their stadiums, as evidence of the loyalty of their fan base.

Do local United fans honestly think they would fill Old Trafford, without the legions of fans who flock in from Ireland, Scandinavia, Devon, and further afield?

And the same goes for Liverpool – they have a global fan base with which City cannot compete. Yet.

Typically one-eyed football fans, they moan about the tourists on the one hand and, on the other, proffer them as proof of the size and importance of their club.

They really can't have it both ways.

Some Liverpool fans have been jumping up and down about City's staggered sales being proof of their 'little club with no history' status.

Even though the 'little club' has a record home crowd of 84,569 – until this season a national high as well – which dwarves Liverpool's record of 61,905, set in 1952.

In fact, Liverpool's record crowd is only 13 highest in the country, behind other 'little clubs' like Charlton Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton.

And, despite the Blues lack of 'istree', they won a European trophy three years before Liverpool managed it.

Glory, and the global profile that comes with it, is cyclical, as Liverpool are finding out.

City need to make sure that their own fans don't develop such split personalities in the years to come!