McManaman disagrees with Gary Neville on infamous Liverpool mentality claim

Steve McManaman has rejected Gary Neville's suggestion that a mentality problem held Liverpool back against Man Utd in the 90s.

The two players often came up against each other during intense battles between the two sides.

Liverpool had a squad blessed with talent, but were often left in Man Utd's slip stream as the Red Devils won several major honours, while the Merseyside club went years without silverware.

Among Liverpool's ranks were the likes of Robbie Fowler, Jamie Redknapp and Jason McAteer, who along with McManaman were dubbed 'The Spice Boys' due to their off-field antics – which Neville felt gave United the edge.

"Think of Liverpool and the Spice Boys, they didn’t get that nickname for nothing," Neville said. "They were still going out and drinking. We weren’t."

But McManaman feels mentality had nothing to do with Liverpool's lack of success compared to United, and feels it was more a quality issue.

"We just had a few more failings certainly than the side now but against the teams back then that just pipped us to the title," McManaman told The Metro.

"You know on our day we could beat the majority of them, we could outplay the majority of them over the season.

"We may have played more attractive football or scored more goals than them but it’s the couple of failings that we had. Maybe our rivals had a better squad or a couple of better players."

McManaman hailed the "very special,really talented" Liverpool side of that time, and compared their "incredible, entertaining football" to the brand currently being played by Jurgen Klopp's stars at Anfield.

Though unlike Klopp's men, the Roy Evans' side containing McManaman fell just short.

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