What a day for Ruben Amorim. First Ipswich Town drop points in the relegation battle and then Manchester United – finally, belatedly – resemble a proper football team against Liverpool.
Apologies for being churlish but can we now ditch that talk of demotion? What always felt like a collective covering of backsides – a deliberate dampening of expectation – was exposed as just that by a performance of thrilling potential at Anfield.
Even with a squad ill-suited to Amorim’s ambitions, we now know that this is the level that United can reach. So before showering them with too much praise for (almost) reining in the freezing Merseyside rain, let’s also recognise that letting standards drop to the extent they have just recently has been nothing short of criminal.
Amorim gets a pass because he is new to this and because, as we saw at Anfield, he looks like he could be a quick learner. Give him a few days at Carrington to correct the wrongs of their recent defeats and what was produced here passed muster and then some.
The set-up looked right, the players looked motivated and the result was that United did not look like a bottom half side.
After the nadir of Newcastle United last week, Amorim had to show he had learned from his mistakes and the midfield was recalibrated to incorporate energy and invention in the shape of the recalled Kobbie Mainoo, who has struggled to recapture the breathless brilliance of his breakthrough season.
Out went Casemiro and Christian Eriksen as the Portuguese belatedly recognised that Premier League midfields are no country for old men, injecting his team with enough vibrancy to unsettle an out-of-sorts Liverpool.
The return of Bruno Fernandes, magnificent here, clearly helped. He remains the only player of the current crop who would not have looked out of place in the Sir Alex Ferguson era, a pedigree performer who sets the standards on and off-the-field.
But there were good displays all over the field: Lisandro Martinez looked colossal at the back while Manuel Ugarte continues to rebuild his reputation after an unsteady start.
But it was the sensible targeting of Liverpool’s right flank – and the isolation of Trent Alexander-Arnold – that almost reaped the ultimate reward.
Diogo Dalot was so quick and elusive that he prompted Roy Keane to memorably suggest Alexander-Arnold’s next transfer destination could be Tranmere Rovers instead of Real Madrid.
If United spent much of the first half surprising their own supporters with the competence of their performance, they will nonetheless reflect on how sparse their threat was.
They ditched playing out from the back – Andre Onana making a conscious decision to go longer – and looked more direct but had few gilt-edged chances to show for it.
Rasmus Hojlund got one of them, his shot blocked by Alisson in the Liverpool goal, while Amad Diallo timed his run just wrong to connect with Dalot’s cross. Flying into the goal at the Kop end, he somehow diverted his header back into the penalty area.
It was a different story in the second half. First Martinez struck high into the net after Fernandes profited from Alexander-Arnold’s slackness.
Liverpool’s response was swift and lethal but still they came back, Amad diverting an equaliser past Alisson. There was still time for Harry Maguire to swipe over in injury-time.
Amorim struck the right note afterwards when he spoke of his anger rather than satisfaction. His frustration, he explained, was from the way they had played during a dire December given this is what they are capable of. It is just a point, but it could be the start of something.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/2FaeMKX
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