Manchester United fans may live to regret this banner about Liverpool but there's more than meets the eye

Manchester United fans may find themselves regretting a banner that was displayed about Liverpool’s 2001 ‘treble’ season after adding the Europa League trophy to their successes this season in the League Cup and Community Shield, but a picture of that banner that has resurfaced on social media is not as simple as that.

The image is the famous “Mickey Mouse Treble” banner that United fans displayed in 2011, 10 years after Liverpool won the Uefa Cup, League Cup and Community Shield in the same season, just like United have in 2017.

United manager Jose Mourinho has been keen to talk up United winning three trophies this season, despite the Community Shield being nothing more than a glorified pre-season friendly that raises the curtain on the English domestic season at Wembley.

“For the team it means everything,” Mourinho said after the match on Wednesday. “It means a third trophy, it means going back to the Champions League, it means playing the European Super Cup in Macedonia next August.”

So in the wake of United’s so-called ‘treble’, this tweet has gone viral in an apparent mockery of those fans that displayed it six years ago, having gained nearly 5,000 retweets and more than 3,000 likes in 13 hours.

But there’s more than meets the eye here. Yes, Liverpool won the same three trophies as United have done, but they also won the FA Cup, a recognised major trophy, as well as the European Super Cup at the start of the following season as they claimed five trophies in 2001.

United fans have been quick to point this out that the two ‘trebles’ do not compare as they are different trophies, but they have also not hesitated in mentioning the real treble of 1999 when they won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in an unprecedented success as they remain the only English side to have achieved such a feat.