Liverpool defeat proves Mourinho has bizarrely binned Man Utd’s one-of-a-kind player

in , , , , , , ,

In a one-sided beatdown, Liverpool beat Manchester United 3-1 at Anfield.

The win put The Reds back on top of the table and gave Liverpool their best ever unbeaten start to a season. Jurgen Klopp’s men were better from start to finish. Who were the winners and losers?

Winner: Xherdan Shaqiri

With the match level at 1-1, Liverpool were looking genuinely panicked. In fact they had all game, really. Sure they were clearly better than a truly incompetent Manchester United, but David De Gea wasn’t exactly being peppered with shots at Anfield. There were no miracle saves.

Then Xherdan Shaqiri came on. The Swiss pinball wizard instantly added a bit of oomph to the Liverpool attack; mostly because his arrival put Sadio Mané out on the right to contend with Matteo Darmian and Ander Herrera. Mané blitzed both men and sent a ball flying into the box; it deflected twice and fell out to Shaqiri who instantly fired it at goal where it again deflected off Ashley Young and then smacked the bar and bounced over the line. Five deflections, but one hero for Liverpool.

The former Stoke player wasn’t satisfied, however. And instead of cracking one off from long range as his team-mates had been doing, fed the ball in to Roberto Firmino. The Brazilian worked it back into the path of Shaqiri and his shot deflected off Ashley Young into the net. 3-1; game over. An enormous display off the bench and perhaps proof that Liverpool do finally have the squad to win the Premier League.

Thick thighs save lives.

Loser: Alisson

For saving a shot that was going right at him against Napoli, people were anointing Alisson as the best goalkeeper in the world. Now obviously he’s very, very good – but all the praise may have gone to his head because in the biggest game of the season so far, he dropped the ball in both a figurative and literal sense.

When Romelu Lukaku sent a cross flying in front the left, Alisson dove out for what should have been a routine catch. Except when he tried to bring the ball down under his control, he kneed it loose and let United equalise very much against the run of play. It took until Liverpool’s late rally for Alisson to receive a reprieve thanks to his team-mates, and for the most part he looked like he was going to be caught out yet again. He’s obviously excellent, but there appears to be, as the saying goes “a mistake in him.”

Winner: Virgil Van Dijk

This was a huge task for Virgil Van Dijk; not only did he have to face down Romelu Lukaku in attack but he also had to marshal a back-line without two of his regular partners so far this season. If the Dutchman was troubled, however, you’d never ever know it.

Van Dijk bossed the match and dominated Romelu Lukaku from start to finish. The big Belgian looked genuinely tiny and meek whenever he went into a 50/50 with Van Dijk, where the Dutchman ruthlessly shoved him ahead time and time again. Given so much of Mourinho’s style involves a striker that can dominate opponents dragging his side up the field, Van Dijk’s neutering of Lukaku was critical to Liverpool’s win.

Loser: Diogo Dalot

It was a surprise to see Diogo Dalot in the starting XI for Manchester United. Sure, he’s obviously talented and such, but he’s also 19-years-old and Mourinho’s distrust of teenagers is legend. But hey, there he was, lining up at right wing-back.

He had a rough time of things in the first half, but didn’t look overawed by the situation. Nothing seemed amiss with his display. So at half-time when José Mourinho was intent of bringing on Marouane Fellaini, who went off? The underperforming Lukaku? Nemanja Matic? Ander Herrera? No, it was Dalot. Of course it was Dalot. And hilariously the move backfired as for all the aerial strength Fellaini gave, the new shape allowed Andrew Robertson to fly forward and help Liverpool overpower United.

Winner: Jesse Lingard

As is usual with Manchester United displays of late, their best player on the park was Jesse Lingard. The Englishman is a sensational player, a wonderful team-focused individual whose primary goal is always making the collective better.

Lingard nearly always made the right pass, the right decision. His ideas didn’t always come off, but they caused constant trouble for Liverpool who had to be on their toes to keep a grip on United’s no. 14.

Of course, they didn’t when he followed his pass out to Romelu Lukaku to run into the box, so when Alisson spilled the ball Lingard was in the perfect position to tuck it home and drawing United level. Then in the second half, it was Lingard driving United forward and trying to make things happen, which made his substitution towards the end all the more baffling.

Loser: Paul Pogba

Manchester United lost 3-1 at Anfield, and Paul Pogba never saw the pitch. He didn’t start, which was absurd enough. And then in the second half he didn’t come off the bench even with United desperate for a goal. He just sat there in his hoodie looking confused.

This made no sense. Pogba is comfortably Manchester United’s best midfielder and their only one capable of genuinely playing dangerous defence-splitting passes with regularity. In a system so built on the counter-attack, leaving your best passer on the bench makes no sense.

Gary Neville said post-match that United didn’t have anyone who can turn and pass, now, whether he meant to include Pogba in that (senselessly) or not – the statement was certainly true of the United players that played at Anfield. And the fact that the World Cup winner didn’t come off the bench, didn’t see any minutes, doesn’t bode well for his future at Manchester United.

Winner: Mino Raiola

One person who will benefit hugely from the potential for Paul Pogba to depart Manchester United is Mino Raiola, the Frenchman’s agent. Raiola is a shark, whose only loyalty is to making his clients (and himself) mountains of money. He did just that when he moved Raiola from Juventus to United back in 2016, and he can do it again in 2019.

He doesn’t even have to wait for the summer, either. As UEFA have abolished their Champions League cup-tie rule, mid-season moves between Europe’s elite will now become more probably. Imagine PSG or Real Madrid get a sniff that Pogba may be available (both wanted Pogba when he chose to return to United) in January, and will be able to play for them in the Champions League? They’d be more than happy to pay up, and Raiola more than happy to bank a hefty cut!

Loser: Manchester United shareholders

Manchester United are rapidly losing their value. There’s a big reason that José Mourinho spoke so much about his insistence that United can still make “the top four” – because he knows that the only thing the Glazers care about is making money, and Mourinho knows that in order for the club to continue to make money they need to stay in Europe’s elite competition.

But with things as they are now; United won’t be returning to the Champions League next season. Liverpool absolutely battered them at Anfield, letting fly with 36 shots – the most United have ever faced in a Premier League game since Opta began recording data. They utterly dominated The Red Devils and this was such a huge indictment of where they are right now. Closer to bottom-placed Fulham (11 points away) than they are to Liverpool at the top (19 points).

So United’s stock is surely going to plummet. If not immediately, then gradually over the course of the season as it becomes crushingly inevitable that Manchester United are not going to make top four, as Mourinho promises, but could even struggle to finish in the top six if this sort of nonsense is allowed to continue.

The post The key winners and loser as Liverpool break club record with emphatic Man Utd win appeared first on Squawka News.



From Squawka NewsSquawka News https://ift.tt/2A46eYv
Labels: , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)