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Nearly a year ago, Manchester City were hit by a storm of outrage for 'disrespecting' the FA Cup after Manuel Pellegrini made nine changes to his team for a fifth-round tie.

On Sunday Liverpool made TEN changes, with no real justification, and the breeze of disapproval would barely ripple a corner flag - indeed, many people focused on the fact that Jurgen Klopp had fielded the youngest side in the club's history as a positive.

City fans sometimes go over the top with conspiracy theories – there are those out there who think they are the victims of a worldwide plot engineered by Michel Platini, David Gill and probably Donald Trump, too.

But when it comes to the differing treatment they get at the hands of the media, compared to the love-in we see for Liverpool, they have a point.

Pellegrini had every reason to make a welter of changes for that game at Stamford Bridge last February.

For a start, it was shifted from the Saturday to four o'clock on the Sunday at the insistence of the BBC, who wanted to televise what – on the face of it – was a clash of two Premier League giants.

But City pointed out, right from the start, that they were flying to Kiev on the Monday for a Champions League last-16 first leg.

Pellegrini also made it plain that, with seven players out injured, a move to the Sunday would mean him having to make drastic changes.

Nobody listened, Pellegrini brought in a load of kids, and the result was a one-sided bore, and much gnashing of teeth at the Beeb.

Alan Shearer led the criticism, ironically on the BBC, arguing 'they have got more resources, more finances than anyone, can virtually buy who they want, so to moan and complain that they have got too many fixtures at this stage of the season...'

The only problem being that City were not complaining about having too many fixtures – Pellegrini's beef was that the game was shifted back a day, with an important European tie looming.

And in his next breath, Shearer said that Crystal Palace would fancy their chances against Spurs, as the latter had played a Europa League game in Italy three days earlier! Go figure, Al.

Chelsea player Cesc Fabregas and ex-player Graeme Le Saux, and some newspaper columnists also waded in, and the Blues were portrayed as virtual executioners of the FA Cup.

This week, Liverpool have an EFL Cup semi-final on the south coast, not in the frozen Ukraine, but it is understandable that Jurgen Klopp would want to keep his powder dry.

He made one more change that City did, played the youngest side in the history of the competition, and Shearer was asked for his comments.

He DID say 'I don't like to see teams resting so many players' and that it had 'bitten' Liverpool, but made no criticism of the club or Klopp – indeed he quickly switched to talking about Bournemouth.

And the crime that Liverpool had committed was adding a cup replay to their busy schedule - “another game which they really didn't want”.