A quick prayer please for Matthew Stead who has to muster up 16 Conclusions from that snorefest between Manchester United and Liverpool at Anfield.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!It wasn’t a case of who would win between Liverpool and United, but by how many the hosts would win. It felt like everyone and their dog was backing a comfortable home victory but Jurgen Klopp’s men simply did not show up.
Everyone knows about Erik ten Hag’s poor record at the best clubs in the Premier League. Against last season’s top nine, the Dutch manager had a single point in ten matches as a Premier League manager going into Sunday’s derby. Obviously that lone draw came at Tottenham, because Tottenham.
If anyone could predict their next point(s) at one of the best nine teams in the league last term, nobody would have predicted that it would come against Liverpool.
United didn’t play badly by any stretch of the imagination but it was hardly a Ten Hag masterclass. Liverpool were incredibly sloppy and their reliance on Mohamed Salah producing something out of the blue was as evident as it ever has been during the bore 0-0 draw on Sunday.
Rasmus Hojlund was anonymous, Sofyan Amrabat was lost, Alejandro Garnacho was poor, and Scott McTominay was…captain. Negatives aside, United did defend as a unit, got their bodies in front of a lot of shots, and got a huge monkey off of their back by ending their torrid run of form in these fixtures.
It was interesting to see such a poor display from Liverpool, though. Like Amrabat for the Red Devils, fellow summer signing Wataru Endo struggled, with both players picking up a yellow card for their troubles.
From 69 per cent possession and 34 shots in total, the Reds hit the target eight times, which is still a better rate of making the goalkeeper work than United had, registering a single shot on target in more than 90 minutes.
But at 0-0, Ten Hag’s game plan did not need to change. There were a couple of times in which they looked dangerous on the counter, which they needed to be, but there was ultimately no end product from either set of players.
Letting Liverpool have the vast majority of the ball and shoot from range was clearly working for the visitors, and their early attempts to play out from the back made them look suffocated and would have Amrabat running towards his own corner flag with the ball at his feet, all in sheer panic.
It was a game in which not a lot happened and no player really stood out for either side.
Trent Alexander-Arnold was as tidy as ever on the ball and made one crucial tackle with Garnacho running in on goal, while Raphael Varane was United’s best player and defended like we all know he can do. And of course Andre Onana did well to keep a clean sheet, which is something that could go a long way to helping him regain his confidence on the pitch.
Perhaps the fact there were no standout performers for Manchester United is a positive sign. A sign that they are a team, and a telling sign that they are playing for their manager – who has come under a severe amount of pressure this season, and rightly so.
With several key players out, including their captain, Bruno Fernandes, they kept a ruddy clean sheet at Anfield. That very rarely happens. In fact, it was the first time since April that Liverpool failed to score in a match.
Praising Manchester United is also quite the rarity and even with all of Liverpool’s sloppiness, they have earned it by getting a very unexpected draw at one of the most difficult grounds in world football. It is something they have not done domestically under Ten Hag, so it is fair to give the Devils their due.
