Daniel’s Debrief: Manchester United 2-2 Liverpool

That ground, that fucking ground. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, we find new and improved ways to mentally collapse there.

1999; out of the FA Cup despite leading with a minute to go.

2002; the Van Nistelrooy game with Hyypia sent off.

2006; Cisse rounding Van Der Sar and missing, Ferdinand winning it in injury time. 

2008; Mascherano getting sent off and refusing to leave the pitch. 

2010; losing after Torres had put us in front. 

Later that year; the Berbatov hat-trick. 

2011; a goal down in a minute and Gerrard off in Dalglish’s first game. 

2013; losing to Moyes’ United in the League Cup. 

2014; Sterling missing every chance imaginable. 

2015; Skrtel getting done for that Martial goal. 

2018; absolutely shitting ourselves twice in twenty minutes. 

2019; failing to score when United had lost three to injury in the first half. 

2021; the FA Cup, eliminated with Alisson failing to save an easy Fernandes free-kick. 

2022; getting beaten by a United side that had lost 4-0 at Brentford a week before.

And now you can add 2024 to add to the memory book.

If that intro looks familiar, it’s because it probably is. I’ve copied and pasted the opening from my debrief from the Old Trafford game three weeks ago.

I’m so sick and tired of this. 

In the last three weeks, playing at that ground, we’ve thrown away a shot at winning the FA Cup and now pissed away a lead in the closest of all title races.

Different games in how they play out, but same outcome.

The only difference is that we don’t lose this time but there should be absolutely no celebrating a draw.

A draw is 66% of a loss, in effect. The suggestion that a draw here is a good result is questionable anyway, but in a game that plays out as this one does, a draw is only mildly less unforgivable than a loss.

And yet, despite all the criticism I’ve given Liverpool (and am going to), it’s worth mentioning how brilliant they are for 45 minutes.

I genuinely believe the first half is the best 45 I’ve ever seen us produce at Old Trafford. And I stand by that despite what unfolds.

It’s better than either half in 08/09 when we win 4-1 - we go down early there to the Ronaldo penalty, or in 13/14 when we win 3-0 - Mignolet makes a great save from Mata before we go in front, or even 21/22 when we win 5-0 - Bruno Fernandes should score after two minutes before we run away with it.

Here, though, they aren’t given a chance. Not a sniff. United don’t have a single shot in that first half. Not a chance, not a potshot from distance, not a set-piece that comes to something.

Liverpool’s dominance is scary. They attack and attack United at will and create chances at a ridiculous rate.

Luis Diaz puts them in front with a good finish after being left in hilarious amounts of space at the back post from a corner.

Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai are all afforded chances but don’t turn any of them home.

The football from Liverpool is exquisite but there’s just a lack of killer instinct. The finishing leaves so much to be desired.

Salah’s all-round game and scoring rate still makes him one of the world’s best but it feels to me like his finishing hasn’t been at its usual level for a while now. 

He’s always been reliant on his left foot but particularly this season, he’s more and more reluctant to use his right and it’s costing him.

There’s an ageing process with any footballer and Salah has managed to keep it at bay for so long but I do wonder if we’re starting to see the first signs of a very, very slow decline in Salah. His performances in the bigger games haven’t been as great this season despite having a really good campaign overall.

Nunez has been pretty poor in every game against City, Arsenal and United. His football IQ lets him down so much at times and today he’s poor in front of goal - snatching and rushing at chances.

He should’ve targeted young Willy Kambwala but hardly made him work all game. It’s a mystifying performance from Nunez.

Diaz finishes the chance well and has been Liverpool’s best attacker in the calendar year so far, and doesn’t have an awful game - he gets us forward on several occasions - but he too misses a glorious chance in the second half which should be buried.

Szoboszlai is in a bit of a rut and has been since the January injury. He’s struggled for consistency since and while his off-the-ball work is very good in that first half today - so much of his work leads to the ridiculous quantity of shots - he could’ve walked down the tunnel on 45 with a hat-truck, but for awful finishing. His general performance level in the second half is very low and leaves so much work for Alexis Mac Allister to do.

Every single player, bar Mac Allister and the two centre-backs, have got to be so much better in the final third. Decision-making is horrific, execution is atrocious. Situation after situation wasted.

Fifteen shots in the first half which is one every three minutes, yet you’d struggle to say anyone other than Mac Allister had actually played well.

The fact that the game is still in the balance at half-time despite unprecedented levels of dominance is criminal from Liverpool. It’s like they’re playing against a League Two side in the League Cup, such is the nature of how United don’t just not threaten, but not even threaten to threaten.

They’re baffling in the first half. The lack of shape is unbelievable. Casemiro starts the game superbly and after 15 minutes looks like a pub league player. Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo are all over the place being tasked with man-marking Mac Allister, leaving Szoboszlai acres of space to drive into.

It’s not a United team that aren’t trying, like in 21/22, but one that haven’t got a clue what they’re doing because the players largely aren’t good enough and the manager’s tactics certainly aren’t.

They’re ripe for a hiding and yet at half-time they’re somehow still in the game. The Stratford End should’ve been emptied by then.

The feeling at half-time is not what it would normally be when you’re 1-0 up in a big game away from home and having played so well.

It’s trepidation.

Fear.

Anxiety.

Panic.

I’ve seen this movie before.

And so, it comes to pass.

Within five minutes of the second half, the meagre lead that Liverpool had attained but somehow failed to build upon was gone.

With United’s first shot.

It’s an individual error that leads to the goal - lots of criticism will go Jarell Quansah’s way but it’s worth saying that Fernandes has a lot to do there - it’s an audacious, magnificent finish. 

Jurgen Klopp’s management of Ibrahima Konate has been questionable recently. 

It all goes back to the first leg of Sparta Prague when he and Virgil Van Dijk looked destined to do 45 minutes each but Konate ends up playing more and coming off injured. He then misses City and the FA Cup loss at my favourite ground. He’s then allowed to join up with - and play for - France days later, picks up a knock while there and misses Brighton, yet Klopp then decides to use him for Sheffield United rather than Old Trafford.

Quansah has been terrific all season and I cannot emphasise this point enough: that mistake is not the reason we drew. 

But, Klopp needs to be managing Konate’s minutes better so that he starts the tougher games next to Van Dijk. Overall, Quansah has a good game but Konate simply doesn’t make that error.

It’s also valid to point out that it’s a rare poor performance from Wataru Endo and with Liverpool having to build from the back with just the two centre-backs, rather than having an inverting Joe Gomez or Trent Alexander-Arnold, or Endo offering as an option, the possibility of misplaced passes increases. 

Obviously, this error wouldn’t have made a jot of difference to the game if we were, say, 4-0 up like we should’ve been at minimum. 

The heads are gone.

We’ve seen the movie before, the players have starred in it before.

Then, the Mainoo goal. Great finish. But it’s astonishing how much time and space he has to set himself and bend his shot. Too narrow, too slow to react.

Did anyone else get Federico Macheda vibes from the goal that cost us the league in 08/09?

The heads are gone.

Not just the two goals - Liverpool suddenly can’t string two passes together.

Decision-making is hideous.

There’s a six-on-two counter attack that Liverpool don’t finish. There’s a big issue with players not taking the responsibility and passing the buck - and the ball - to someone else. This counter ends up with Nunez on the touchline crossing. It’s scandalous.

Harvey Elliott gets Liverpool to be a bit more smart and exert a bit of control again. He wins the penalty which Salah converts. 

The other subs - Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones and Gomez - are poor. I’d have kept Conor Bradley on and moved Gomez to left-back because Robertson was having a horrendous game in the final third and Bradley was starting to get in behind a bit more.

Klopp looks confused and furious but yet he’s seen it all before.

Liverpool should be smarter in the second half. They should defend better. They should manage injury time better. 

But, none of that is even a conversation if they do the job in the first half. 

We’re 22 points in front of United for a reason. 

I don’t think any of United’s players are bad per se but they are full of moments players and no cohesion, tactics or set-up. 

Diogo Dalot, Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Casemiro. All decent but not great. 

To have dropped four points against United and having been knocked out of the FA Cup to them is not acceptable.

From 5th-20th, United are the only team we haven’t beaten at least once.

Our record against the top four is well-documented as being not good but that is all fine as long as you’re consistent against the rest.

Again, United aren’t awful but they’re not a team either.

To register an xG of nearly 5 and to not win and only score once from open play is obscene from Liverpool.

If our finishing had been great, we’d have hit double figures.

If our finishing had been good, we’d have scored seven.

If our finishing had been okay, we’d have scored four.

If our finishing had been poor, we’d have scored three.

The only way we don’t win that game - even with conceding two goals - is if our finishing is atrocious.

Unfortunately, it is.

Not being clinical has been a bit of an issue all season but today is on another level to the impact it causes. The problem really is that Diogo Jota is the only genuinely reliable finisher currently at the job.

If Jota starts today, he’s almost certainly going home with the match ball.

What are Liverpool going home with, then? 

I don’t know. You don’t know. No-one knows because nothing has been decided today because there’s still seven games of league football for Liverpool and twenty-one games of league football that involve the three title protagonists.

I do know that City and Arsenal would’ve both won that game - Arsenal go to Old Trafford in their penultimate game - but I also know that we beat Chelsea at home and City didn’t and that we beat West Ham at home when Arsenal lost.

Nothing has been decided today.

But, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of Arsenal or City go and win seven in a row now. It’s out of Liverpool’s hands but to win the league, they’re now likely to need to win their own seven games.

Every Liverpool fan around should be wildly cheering on Arsenal and City in the Champions League this week and hoping one of them make it to the final.

It’s unlikely that both of City and Arsenal will win seven but it’s also feeling like perhaps Liverpool are starting to run out of steam a little bit.

Having Jota, Jones, Alexander-Arnold and Alisson Becker available to start soon will help.

It seems timely to point out that Liverpool are the third best of the three teams involved - I’m not doing ourselves down there, that’s just the reality, and it makes it even more impressive that we’ve done what we’ve done.

If Liverpool don’t win the league though, the two fixtures against United will be a major reason why.

Klopp has only got two wins in eleven visits to Old Trafford in the last eight years which, when you consider we’ve finished above United in five of those nine seasons, is ludicrous.

There’s only one bit of good news for Klopp today and that’s that he never has to manage Liverpool at that ground again.

Daniel