It’s the Brendan Rodgers chihuahua comparison that’s gripping the nation, and now it’s at the centre of a legal storm.

The comparison, fruity, was made by Rodgers in an attempt to illustrate how his Liverpool side might run through horses’ legs on their way to being Premier League champions.

In a sentence structure that’s already being described as essential in terms of not starting consecutive paragraphs with ‘the’, the Brendan Rodgers chihuahua analogy has also been deemed “misrepresentative” by a consortium comprising of the NSPCA and key advocates of the Trades Description Act.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, some of these people explained that if Liverpool were any kind of dog then it would be one that could field a team of footballers worth tens of millions of pounds.

They roared: “A chihuahua just wouldn’t have those kinds of resources.

“Former Newcastle United backflipper Lomana LuaLua is probably a relatively wealthy man, although probably not wealthy enough to afford to pay £20m for Stewart Downing.

“We’d wager however that LuaLua is considerably richer than any chihuahua you could care to mention, so maybe Brendan Rodgers meant him.

“Or Kazenga LuaLua.”

Speaking via a sternly worded letter, Rodgers declared a legal row to be “well and truly sparked” if anyone so much as suggests that Liverpool aren’t a chihuahua.

He scribbled: “I reserve the right to take action against those responsible for the protection of the good name of the company and of chihuahuas.

“That also goes for anyone who says that Luis Suárez isn’t a false 9 or that that wasn’t a Spanish penalty on Raheem Sterling at Stoke the other week.

“Anyway I once read something about an eccentric old billionaire who had no living family so he left all his money to his chihuahua, so there.”

In other news, Lazio remain adamant that teen star Joseph Minala looks 41-years-old because of something that no one could make out because the spokesperson issuing the statement started mumbling into his own hand at that point.