Jurgen Klopp believes that the only lasting effect of Liverpool’s 7-0 victory over Manchester United in March will be to spur the visitors on this coming weekend at Anfield.
The Reds manager has had a hectic week as he gets ready for the biggest and most watched club match in football. He also has to deal with a tedious trip to Belgium for a Europa League dead-rubber with Union Saint-Gilloise.
Since his team has already advanced to the round of 16, Klopp decided to leave four of his best players on Merseyside on Wednesday: captain Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alisson Becker, and Mohamed Salah. This was done to prevent adding more injuries to an already long list of first-team players who are out with various injuries. Despite all the talk of “Liverpool 2.0” and how the team has been reconstructed and given a new look, those four players are the foundation of a team whose thrilling potential is still very much untapped.
On the other side, Anfield has proven to be an especially painful destination for United, who have failed to score a goal at the home of their most hated rivals for five years. On their most recent visit in March, Ten Hag’s team was hammered 7-0 by the Reds.
Given the recent results, there are legitimate worries that United might suffer a similar humiliation. The Red Devils were humiliated 3-0 at home by Bournemouth just last weekend. Rather than using a counterattack to win at Old Trafford for the first time ever, Bournemouth played their hosts off the field.
Three days later, United’s hopes of competing in the continental competition were dashed when Bayern Munich, who had already advanced to the Champions League round of 16, defeated them 1-0 at the same venue with little effort on their part.
So, the last thing Ten Hag needed was a north-west derby against a Liverpool side that has been revamped and revitalised by Klopp.
When Klopp took on United in his first game as manager of Liverpool, the Red Devils were sixth in the Premier League standings and had a Dutch coach who was under intense pressure. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that the more things change with United, the more they remain the same.
Even though Louis van Gaal’s team defeated Liverpool 1-0 and managed to see out the 2015–16 season—only to be fired less than 48 hours after winning the FA Cup final—but there’s no assurance that his countryman Erik ten Hag will even make it to the Christmas.
Remember that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the Portuguese manager, and Jose Mourinho, the successor to Van Gaal, were both fired soon after humiliating defeats to Liverpool.
Here’s a look at the points comparison between both Liverpool and Manchester United since Man United’s last PL Title in 2012/13 [Courtesy: Skysports Twitter Handle]:
