After two hard-fought wins in mid-week, Manchester United and Liverpool turned their attentions back to domestic matters for a clash against their biggest rivals at Old Trafford.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer continued with the same eleven that started their victory over Atalanta on Wednesday, setting up in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation.
Jürgen Klopp made two changes to the team that bested Atlético Madrid on Tuesday, bringing in Diogo Jota and Ibrahima Konaté for Sadio Mané and Joël Matip. Liverpool lined up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
It took just four minutes for Liverpool to cut through United’s press and take the lead. With Liverpool passing backwards, Bruno Fernandes stepped up to pressure Jordan Henderson, then Virgil van Dijk, then Alisson Becker, as Liverpool went back to the goalkeeper. His teammates failed to step up behind in support quick enough though, meaning Van Dijk could drop back and receive an easy pass from Alisson. Mason Greenwood went to press Van Dijk, but the easy pass wide to Andy Robertson was left open; Aaron Wan-Bissaka stepped up to pressure Robertson, but couldn’t get near him in time, allowing the Scot to send the ball down the line to Jota; Victor Lindelöf was pulled wide to cover in behind Wan-Bissaka, but Jota moved the ball inside quickly, where Harry Maguire was left alone against Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah; Firmino received the ball from Jota, turned, then, with Maguire coming towards him, knocked it on for Salah; with Salah alone through the centre, Luke Shaw came across to cover Maguire, leaving Naby Keïta free down the outside to receive the ball and finish past David de Gea. United’s failure to support Fernandes’ initial press allowed Liverpool to take the Portuguese out of the game and from then on each domino toppled: a United player would move out to cover for a teammate, only for Liverpool to play the ball into the space they had just left. Liverpool went from having the ball at their goalkeeper’s feet to in the opposite net in the space of thirteen seconds.
Liverpool doubled their lead less than ten minutes later. Under no pressure near the half-way line, Henderson dinked a pass behind Greenwood for Robertson down the left. Aaron Wan-Bissaka stepped out to close Robertson down, but the Scot had time to control the ball, take a touch out of his feet and play a pass in behind. With Wan-Bissaka stepping out and Liverpool pushing James Milner and Keïta forward from midfield, United’s defenders were left outnumbered four-against-three against Liverpool’s attack. Even then they looked to have gotten way with it, with Robertson’s pass bouncing through to a red shirt, but both Maguire and Shaw went for it, getting mixed up and allowing Keïta to retrieve it. Keïta passed wide to Trent Alexander-Arnold making a completely untracked run down the right, who drilled a cross along the floor. Wan-Bissaka had barely mustered a jog getting back into position, so Milner was free at the far post, however Jota stretched to get his foot to the ball first – Lindelöf had been marking him, but then stepped up with the defensive line, only to then go wandering towards the near post as he dropped back towards his own goal again rather than tracking the Portuguese, without even making any attempt to cut out the pass. Literally every member of United’s back four made a major error for this goal.
United’s attacking plan involved leaving their front four high up the pitch, hoping to overload Liverpool’s backline.
Pushing these players so far up the pitch made it difficult for United to get the ball to them though. United would try to pass out from the back, but Fred and Scott McTominay had a tendency to occupy the same space, making it easy for Liverpool to corner them. Pressing high, Liverpool were repeatedly able to win the ball back in United’s half with relatively little effort.
The far greater problem with this plan was defensive though. With the front four failing to get back and support them, United’s defensive players were completely overrun. By pushing Keïta up with the attacking trio, Liverpool could go man-for-man with United’s back four, while Milner would frequently push forward to outnumber them. With Marcus Rashford and Greenwood not tracking back, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson were free on the overlap. This put United’s full-backs in an impossible position: do they move wide to combat Liverpool’s overlapping full-backs, leaving their teammates completely outnumbered in the middle, or do they stay in the centre, leaving Robertson and Alexander-Arnold with time to pick out passes into an area where United were still outnumbered? Liverpool wouldn’t push everyone forward at the same time, but there were seven different players overloading United’s back four.
McTominay and Fred aimed to help them, but they were outnumbered themselves. Try to move wide to help the full-backs and Firmino would drop into the space that opened up between them in the centre. With Fernandes and Cristiano Ronaldo often pushing forward in the centre, Henderson would frequently be left free to pick up the ball in midfield, enabling Liverpool to outnumber United three-versus-two in this area even before Firmino started to drop back to join in too.
United’s frontline weren’t lazy defensively, as they were attempting to press, but it was horribly organised and therefore ineffectual. As shown in the first goal, a player would often go chasing after the Liverpool player on the ball, only for none of his teammates to step up and support him, allowing Liverpool to pass around him easily. It wasn’t just a collective failure though: the individual techniques on display were often terrible too, with players rushing towards the Liverpool player on the ball without curving their runs to cut off passes into other players, meaning Liverpool could easily just send the ball sailing past them into the open man.
Liverpool added a third on 37 minutes. Rashford rushed forward to pressure Alexander-Arnold but failed to block the pass into Firmino behind him, so Alexander-Arnold simply sent it down the line. Having broken past that first line of pressure, Liverpool outnumbered United in midfield: Fred was pulled wide to combat Firmino, but he sent the ball back to Henderson completely free at the base of the midfield, while McTominay was left alone to deal with both Keïta and Milner’s replacement Curtis Jones. With a series of quick interchanging passes, Liverpool played into attack, where Salah’s shot was blocked, but the ball ricocheted wide. United’s back four had all been drawn narrow to deal with Liverpool’s attacking trio exchanging passes, leaving Keïta free on the overlap down the right. The Guinean ran onto the ball and struck a low cross for Salah to tap in at the near post.
With that goal Salah became the first ever Liverpool player to score in ten successive games across all competitions and the Premier League’s highest scoring African, but he didn’t stop there. Just before the half-time whistle, Wan-Bissaka was again drawn out and Lindelöf came across to cover behind him, leaving Firmino with space through the middle. The Brazilian controlled the ball and returned it to Robertson, who squeezed a pass through to Jota, causing Shaw to come across to cover. This left Salah free on the right, so Jota rolled the ball across to him and the Egyptian perfectly placed the ball into the net through the tiny gap De Gea left at the near post.
Solskjaer made a substitution at half-time, bringing on Paul Pogba for Greenwood in an attempt to shore up the midfield by switching to a 4-3-3. It didn’t work. Just minutes into the second half, Firmino and Henderson teamed up to rob Pogba of the ball and Liverpool’s captain sent a beautiful pass in behind the United backline with the outside of his boot to set up Salah for his third – the Egyptian becoming the first away player since Ronaldo in 2003 to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford and the first for Liverpool since Fred Howe in 1936.
Pogba lasted just fifteen minutes before being sent off for a poor challenge on Keïta that saw the midfielder replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Embarrassed, United’s players were losing their heads. Ronaldo was fortunate to avoid a red card for lashing out at Jones, while Maguire and Fernandes both made poor tackles at the start of the second half.
United switched to a 5-3-1/5-2-2 shape straight after the red card, with Edinson Cavani and Diogo Dalot replacing Rashford and Fernandes, the Uruguayan dropping back to help the midfield.
Liverpool didn’t push to add to their score, mainly keeping possession as they saw the game out.
This was by far Liverpool’s easiest match of the season so far, which, coming just one week after Watford’s embarrassingly pathetic display, is saying something. It’s hard to see Solskjaer coming back from this.
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