Maybe it was actually sweeter for Manchester United to win this way. To give their great rivals some hope and then snatch it away from them again. Michael Carrick and his United team are back in the Champions League and this was quite some way to do it.
Fifteen minutes in and United were two goals up and rampant. Liverpool scored seven at Anfield against Erik ten Hag’s version of United back in 2023 and, after those early goals from Matheus Cunha and then Benjamin Sesko, Carrick’s players must have sniffed some kind of ultimate payback.
Liverpool were hopeless and hapless. Full of possession and territory but all at sea once United’s red waves of counter-attack broke on their shores. Oblivion beckoned and United and their supporters would have given anything at this stage to be able to dish out a proper hiding. They have suffered enough at the hands of their great rivals in recent times.
But if that wasn’t to be possible then maybe this was a perfect alternative. To drag Liverpool up from their knees and then catapult them back down into the dirt. Twice in the first eleven minutes of the second half, United coughed up the ball to give Liverpool two goals and parity. It was a comeback that came from nowhere.
Young substitute Amad Diallo was the first to err, Dominik Szoboszlai running clear to score. Then, almost immediately, goalkeeper Senne Lammens messed up a short goal kick and Cody Gakpo rolled the ball in to an empty net.
All of a sudden – and for a while – calamity looked as though it could be United's. Liverpool were now the better team. Harry Maguire made a great block to deny Gakpo and then Lammens hacked a ball off his line after a scramble at a set piece.
For both teams a draw seemed palatable as the clock ran down but Carrick’s United are running hot in a way that Liverpool are not. The defending champions’ efforts at the back end of games have been pretty woeful this season. And so when Alexis MacAllister cleared Luke Shaw’s cross to the edge of the penalty area with 13 minutes left, it was no great surprise that Kobbie Mainoo was there to drive the ball back low and hard and into the corner.
It was an emphatic finish and it seemed appropriate. For United’s football had been this way and Liverpool’s had not. Liverpool were much better in the second half but still needed two United mistakes to get them back into the game. Over the piece, they were pretty limp going forward. No cleverness, no element of surprise and certainly no pace.
United remain far from the perfect team but they do know how to make things happen and here – when they needed to – they absolutely did. At times they did here what Liverpool used to do to them. Soaked up pressure, stole the ball and then sprang forward devastatingly.
Indeed, their start was breathtaking. Carrick’s team had been out of the blocks quickly against Brentford on Monday but this was Liverpool so this meant more. United have pace to burn these days. Their opponents are not so blessed, especially with players like Mo Salah and Hugo Ekitike missing.
So we were treated to the sight of United sitting happily in their own half and watching Liverpool pass the ball around in front of them. Then, when they took possession themselves, they were able to break with menace. Liverpool couldn’t cope and were fortunate only to be two goals down by half-time.
United’s first goal came from a corner and though it carried a little luck, it was also the result of early pressure. Liverpool only half cleared the ball to the edge of the penalty area and when Cunha’s first shot came back to him off Ryan Gravenberch, his second struck MacAllister and bobbled into the corner past Freddie Woodman in the visitors’ goal.
Woodman has enjoyed himself since replacing Giorgi Mamardashvili towards the end of the Merseyside derby. He helped to win that game and did likewise against Crystal Palace a week later. But this was different. Liverpool were up against it from the first whistle and by the time we had played 14 minutes, United had doubled their lead.
This one came after a long VAR check but was correctly awarded. Liverpool may have thought they had seen off the danger as Woodman blocked from Sesko. But when the ball was recycled and Shaw crossed to the far post, Bruno Fernandes’ header across goal was pawed out by the Liverpool keeper and that enabled Sesko to bundle it in.
The VAR check was for a handball against the scorer and there may have been one. But TV didn’t provide conclusive evidence and United had distance between themselves and their opponents. It had been a frantic start but the game settled into a rhythm for a while thereafter. Liverpool had plenty of the ball but did nothing with it.
By half-time, all Slot’s team had to show for their territory were two shots wide from 20 yards and one from Gravenberch that arrived from even further out and was saved by Lammens comfortably. United, meanwhile, continued to carry intent and menace. Indeed when Bryan Mbeumo broke down the right to cross low, Fernandes should have done better than drill a first-time shot wide of the near post from twelve yards. Had that one gone in to make it 3-0, we would have been spared all the subsequent drama and excitement.
As it was, when Liverpool did find a way back into the game it was completely unexpected. Carrick made a change at half-time as Amad replaced Sesko and one of the young forward’s first contributions was to pass the ball straight to Szoboszlai. The Hungarian still had half of the field to navigate but with United defenders backing off, he turned past Maguire comfortably and pulled his left-foot shot across Lammens and into the corner from 14 yards.
One mistake was careless and shouldn’t have been cause for panic. The second, coming in the 56th minute, was unforgivable. This one came from the modern obsession with short goal kicks and blew up in United’s face as Lammens passed straight to MacAllister and he worked the ball to Szobozslai who squared calmly for Gakpo to score.
Utter embarrassment suddenly beckoned for United and for a while it looked possible. Liverpool were the better team for twenty minutes and half chances were theirs. They needed to take one, though, and that they didn’t eventually cost them. Mainoo’s finish really was fabulous.
Liverpool pushed again at the end. It would have been hard to begrudge them a point. But the right side of the fine margins continue to elude them and a cameo from young winger Rio Ngumoah wasn’t enough to save them. This was league defeat number eleven for Slot’s team. Sunderland and Leeds – both promoted last season – have lost only one more each. Both United and Liverpool will in all likelihood both play Champions League next season but the way they feel about that will be quite different.
