While Liverpool remain on the hunt for four trophies, Manchester United are botching their attempt to even make the top four.
Jürgen Klopp made two changes to the side that beat Manchester City in their FA Cup semi-final, replacing Ibrahima Konaté and Naby Keïta with Joël Matip and Jordan Henderson. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Ralf Rangnick made four changes to the team that edged past bottom club Norwich City on Saturday. Alex Telles, Jesse Lingard, Jadon Sancho and Cristiano Ronaldo were replaced by Phil Jones, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Nemanja Matic and Marcus Rashford. United switched from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3 shape.
Just like the thrashing at Old Trafford, United attempted to press Liverpool but failed to organise it properly. The forwards would step up to press but those behind them wouldn’t follow, meaning Liverpool could simply pass around them into free men in midfield.
Part of the problem was that they were outnumbered in midfield: Bruno Fernandes and Anthony Elanga were expected to move wide to combat Liverpool’s full-backs, but this would leave Paul Pogba and Matic against three Liverpool midfielders in the centre, while Liverpool’s forwards would happily drop into midfield if United’s midfielders left a gap by pushing forward to pressure their teammates. If Fernandes and Elanga stayed higher up in-field, then this simply left space down the outside of United’s midfield.
Wan-Bissaka would sometimes push forward to join the press, but Andy Robertson tended to play a more withdrawn role in line with the centre-backs, meaning Wan-Bissaka would have a lot of ground to cover to reach him, allowing the Scot to move the ball on before he could get out to him.
Within minutes, Liverpool had taken the lead. They played to the left then switched play out to the right and with Fernandes failing to shift across, Matic was drawn forward in an attempt to pressure Henderson, leaving space for Sadio Mané to drop into. Henderson could have easily played inside to Fabinho free in midfield, but with Paul Pogba seemingly marking the referee rather than a red shirt, he instead opted to play forward to Mané. Harry Maguire stepped up but then stopped, failing to put any pressure on Mané. Seeing as Maguire didn’t pressure Mané, the Senegalese was able to turn and spray a pass in behind the high line, while, given Maguire didn’t bother to drop off either, instead choosing to do squats near the half-way line, both Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold were free to sprint in behind. Salah ran onto the ball and squared for Luis Diaz to finish.
Pogba was then taken off injured, replaced by Lingard, with Fernandes taking over the Frenchman’s deeper role. Pogba makes such little effort defensively that it’s debatable whether it was necessarily a worse choice, but seeing as Fernandes is very much an attacking player, it wasn’t a better one. The Portuguese consistently failed to shift across or get back in time to support his teammates defensively.
Liverpool doubled their lead with a brilliantly worked move. United had by this point largely given up on pressing, instead dropping back to defend. Matip made use of the space to push forward on the ball and play into Diaz, who returned it back to him, so Matip bounced a first-time pass into Mané. With one touch, the Senegalese chipped a perfect pass over the defence into Salah’s feet to finish.
Along with Diogo Dalot and Wan-Bissaka switching flanks, Rangnick removed Jones at half-time, bringing on Sancho as United changed to a 4-3-3 formation. This allowed United to engage Liverpool high up the field, but playing two attacking midfielders in the centre also made it easy for Liverpool to waltz through the middle of United.
United at least managed to hold back Liverpool for 23 minutes of the second half, but then the Reds scored again. Victor Lindlöf passed into Elanga, but Robertson intercepted the ball and broke forward, with Matic the lone man guarding United’s midfield. Without much resistance, Robertson carried the ball into the final third then offloaded the ball to Diaz before continuing his run forward, pulling Matic into defence to open up a pass inside to Mané. Diaz simply slid the ball into the middle and the Senegalese finished first time with his left foot.
Liverpool rounded out their win with a fourth. A poor Maguire pass encouraged Robertson to press and rob the ball from substitute Hannibal Mejbri, the Scot poked the ball on to Diogo Jota, who slid a through ball in behind Maguire as he stepped up to get tight to Mané, putting Salah through on goal to lob David de Gea.
It says a lot about where United are currently that most Liverpool supporters had little concern about the match going into it. Many teams lower down the league have the potential to frustrate or snatch a goal, but there was never much fear that this would happen against United, and they were proved right: this United side are an embarrassment who have now failed under five different managers, yet will continue to play victim and claim it isn’t their fault. The club have spent over a billion pounds assembling the squad and yet you could count the players who should be kept on one hand, and even then it’s usually due to their potential rather than their current performances.
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