Well that was fun. Seriously fun. As in, quite literally skipping around the house at 5am fun. Manchester United nil, Liverpool FIVE. Have a little bit of that.
As an extremely happy Liverpool fan I’ll start with them. Excellent, superb, blistering, stunning, lethal and unstoppable. Et Cetera. Goals by Naby Keita, Diogo Jota, and then three from an utterly ruthless Mohamed Salah. Doesn’t get better than tearing Manchester United apart in their own backyard.
For United, though, this was a humiliation, and not just on the scoreboard – although it was bad enough there. Being thrashed, though, can happen; coincidentally it was almost ten years to the day since Sir Alex Ferguson’s United were beaten 6-1 by Manchester City. In that game, though, while they had been outplayed the score had been run up in the final few minutes as they had lost their heads and gone looking for goals. Today it was 5-0 in fifty minutes, and had Liverpool been so minded they could have pushed on for as many as they wanted after Paul Pogba (brought on presumably to stabilise the game) was sent of for a stupid high tackle on Keita.
In short, the gulf between the two teams was enormous. What was worse for United, though, was the nature of that gulf. Liverpool pressed and harried as one unit from the first minute; United were a disorganised rabble. The first two goals showed this, the third, fourth, and fifth simply underlined it.
For the first goal Liverpool were allowed to play from one end of the field to the other without opposition. Alisson to van Dijk, van Dijk to Robertson, Robertson to Jota, Jota inside to Firmino, Firmino to Salah, Salah to Keita. Goal. Manchester United players at every stage too slow, too late, second best and nowhere near the ball. More like training cones than defenders.
The second was a different sort of debacle, as Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire (the world’s most expensive fridge) simply clattered into each other trying to clear a cross, leaving Trent Alexander-Arnold all the time in the world to slide the ball across for Diogo Jota at the back post. 2-0, and from utterly shambolic, embarrassing defending. Keystone Cops stuff.
And from there they capitulated completely. Mohamed Salah became the first visiting player to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford since the original (Brazilian) Ronaldo in 2003, as all of United’s recent poor performances culminated in the most humiliating day for the club in recent memory. Largest home defeat in 70-odd years, largest to Liverpool ever, and all from a team that was talked about at the beginning of the season as title contenders. On this evidence they’re not even close.
There was a further concern too; the United players’ complete lack of discipline. Pogba’s dismissal has already been mentioned, but Maguire was lucky not to join him in having an early bath after tripping Jota when the forward was through on goal, while Bruno Fernandes was also booked for a reckless lunge during the second half. The worst offender, though, was Cristiano Ronaldo. Childish on a good day, Ronaldo was an extremely lucky boy not to see red for twice kicking Curtis Jones while the Liverpool man was on the floor as the end of the first half with the ball laying against him. Yes, he did it through the ball, but make no mistake Ronnie knew exactly what he was doing. I doubt the ref would have let any other player off the hook.
Anyway, there are big questions now about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s future as Manchester United boss. This was not a one-off, but simply the culmination of a series of performances in which the only evident gameplan was to give the ball to one of the club’s supremely talented forward players and hope they do something special. There is no sign of cohesion or common purpose to be been anywhere when you watch United, and after three years in the job that’s not anywhere near acceptable.
That it was the fans of Liverpool, United’s greatest rivals, singing in the closing stages for Solskjaer to stay tells you all that you need to know.
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