In a now-deleted tweet, the English giants shared a photo of Mims Davies, the Minister for Employment in Boris Johnson's Conservative or Tory government, standing on the hallowed pitch with officials at their home stadium to promote a centrally-run scheme providing paid work placements.

That led to uproar among staggered supporters who questioned why bosses had welcomed Davies to a city with a long history of animosity towards the party, which won a tiny proportion of the vote in the most recent elections across the Labour Party stronghold.

Some readers blasted the timing of the move as particularly insensitive, coming a week after the trial collapsed of two ex-police officers and a solicitor who had been charged with perverting the course of justice for amending police statements after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

The families of the 96 people killed in the tragedy, which remains the worst of its kind in British football history, had voiced their dismay at the news as they continue to attempt to find closure decades on from the disaster.

Many still feel that former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her government fostered an attitude of hostility towards football fans and a culture that allowed supporters to be falsely blamed for Hillsborough.