Being a hypocrite as at the very core of being a football fan, to some extent or another. Loyalty can play havoc with people's sense of fairness.
I don't seek to speak for all City fans when I say this, but for me at least, the main driver of the mocking that has gone on in relation to united in recent years has little to do with each club's respective points total at any given point in time, but rather the exposure of the self righteous pontificating that we had to endure for years from supporters and officials alike about their club's 'way' of doing things for what it really was; a lie. The obscenely and comically named 'united way'
For as long as I've cared to remember I've had to endure united fans (including from within my own family) tiresomely drone on about united never having had a sugar daddy (a lie), have always spent money they've 'earned' (wholly wrong, even in the last 25 years) produce the best young talent (not been true for 25 years), having always been the biggest club in Manchester (another lie), that they don't pay the biggest wages (pretty much always have in the Premier League era) whilst playing the game with swashbuckling élan (certainly no longer the case) that they aren't a sacking club (unless Ferguson isn't the manager) and going about their business in a way that excludes class (dodgy meat, toilet cubicles, evicting Munich survivors, sister-in-law/granny shagging etc etc....notwithstanding).
All these myths have been exposed, one by one, as a complete facade maintained by a compliant media.
This is all against the backdrop of a club that when its closest neighbours, who had previously helped it out at various times, fell upon a period of chronic underachievement chose to mark that with a banner openly mocking them. A banner wholeheartedly embraced by united as a club, it should be said.
So you see, the points difference doesn't really enter into it. For years people associated with united have been boring (and lying to) the rest of us about how different and special their club was and now that has been shown up to be the smoke and mirrors that many of us believed it always was, we've got every right to continue to take the piss, whether we win, lose or draw at Arsenal.
Which we will, I promise.
