A club in desperate need of their first win of the season at Old Trafford. Questions being asked about the suitability of their central midfielders and the ability of the starting forwards to press. Defenders making odd decisions and a goalkeeper who looks a little shaky with the ball at feet.
You know where this is going. Are Liverpool now the Big Six club in crisis? Must there always be one?
Funny thing, character. It’s tempting to dismiss talk of wanting it more, of being prepared to blood, sweat and tear your way to being better, as distinctly retrograde.
In the age of Big Data and controlling the controllables, it’s all about working smarter, not harder. Asked whether they would prefer their team to be better technically or better physically and most managers would choose the former.
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'They can f***ing play football!' - Ten Hag hails attitude as Klopp promises Liverpool 'fight'23 August, 2022But you watch Monday’s Manchester United performance against Liverpool and try to claim that hard work and heart were not the biggest differences between this week and last.
Yes there was movement between the front three, with and without the ball; Cristiano Ronaldo can now only be a super-sub. Yes there was communication in central defence; Harry Maguire was the biggest Manchester United loser of Monday evening. But washing over all of that was a potent, demonstrable desire to work for one another and to defend their own pride when it got tough.
Supporters – at Old Trafford and far beyond – can take being beaten by better teams. If this is a three-year rebuild, that will happen on occasion. But what really riles them, what provokes them to reach for the most stinging epithets of frustration, is watching a group of players who seem broadly ambivalent to their own emergency.
If the benefit of a dreadful start to life as Manchester United manager was that Erik ten Hag had a mandate to pick his team by meritocracy, he grasped the nettle; United’s bench cost £319m in transfer fees. Gone were Luke Shaw, Maguire, Ronaldo and Fred, a list that includes the club captain and the highest-paid player at the club.
You could call it panic or you could deem it the action of a coach unafraid to make massive calls. Ten Hag has taken a huge step forward in earning the faith of a jaded fan base.
United were everything that Liverpool were not. They hounded their opponents in possession. The component parts of a nascent front three clicked together seamlessly and looked more dangerous still after Anthony Martial’s half-time introduction – Ten Hag got that call right too.
The two full-backs may not be overlapping marauders, but they dealt superb with Liverpool’s two best attacking players. Marcus Rashford, for so long the little boy lost, thrashed home his finish and finally, at last, produced a beaming smile. We have waited far too long for that.
And so the baton of pressure passes into the hands of Klopp. If the long list of absentees offers part-explanation for Liverpool’s lethargy, and certainly made getting back into the game more difficult, that is no excuse for their starters to lack cohesion so spectacularly.
Their collapse in 2020-21 was shocking but caused by the absence of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson. Now those two are complicit in a limp, listless start to this season.
Even by the standards of a chaotic Fulham draw and frustrating point against Palace, this was shambolic. No element of the team connected with another. James Milner, at 36, was seemingly asked to carry out two roles and succeeded in neither. If Milner is not quite it anymore, Harvey Elliott is not quite it yet. Trent Alexander-Arnold was tortured by Elanga in the first half. Roberto Firmino, for so long a fine facilitator of goals if not a scorer of them, actively hamstrung their attacking play with misplaced passes and one spectacular miskick.
But more than the flaws in their individuals, it is the collective disarray that is cause for most concern.
In Klopp’s best teams, there was a shared belief, a communal credence in the logic of the process that was so obvious you could almost reach out from the stand and touch it. It was the defining trait of a great side: every player knew what the bloke next to him would do next and when he would do it.
Where has that gone? Why has a back five in which only Joe Gomez is not a usual start suddenly become brittle? Why are midfielders suddenly having to point to where they want to receive the ball rather than it being automatic? And can the evaporation of this cohesion in the early weeks of this season be explained simply by the number of absentees?
Klopp will hope so, for that is a solvable problem. But it needs to be solved quickly if the title they crave is not to disappear over the horizon before the nights have even turned cool.
"I can't believe what I've just witnessed"
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) August 22, 2022
Gary Neville reacts to a stunning performance from Man Utd at Old Trafford this eveningpic.twitter.com/02PiP0M481
Great eras do not pass overnight and nor are they born. Manchester United have had more false dawns over the last decade than a The Office-themed fancy dress day, and Liverpool’s great strength is in their unity through adversity. They will be back and we need more proof that United are.
But Ten Hag at least has his breakout night and the blueprint to force feed into his players over the next days and weeks. We tried it your way against Brighton, and it didn’t work. I told you to try it my way against Brentford and you barely looked bothered. We did it my way against Liverpool and we won back the faith of a mass of people who are desperate for a football team they can be proud of.
A night of protest ended in hope of progress and faith in the process.
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