Manchester United 0-5 Liverpool
Liverpool and Mo Salah humiliated Manchester United in a game that lasted 45 minutes, at the break Liverpool was flying 4-0 already. The beating slowed down in the second half as Man United was able to defend better but one of the club’s darkest days ended on a high for the visitors as the Reds found the net one last time from Salah. The Egyptian is the first player to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford.
Liverpool alongside Man City and Chelsea are poised for a title run, a run that Manchester United sees from a far distance already…
A man on fire
Mohammed Salah is undoubtedly the best player in the Premier League and arguably in the world right now. His class and talent have shone so many times in the early weeks of the Premier League season. Salah totaled 10 goals in the first 9 games of the season and in the shortlist for the 2021 Ballon d’Or.
Coach Klopp on a glorious night in Manchester
“It’s a good day, a really good day and I don’t want to be disrespectful. I have no idea, but it’s a big one. We know that. Obviously, after the game I got told that never happened in the long history of LFC; this group always wanted to write their own little chapters for the big, big history book of this club. This one was a little one tonight, a little chapter. People will talk about it in the future, 100 percent, because it will not happen very often, if it happens again at all. We saw the game as well and we know we were lucky in two or three situations where United could have scored in the first half. I think they should have scored the first one, but that doesn’t make our performance [any less], that’s just how it is.
In front of the goal, in the last third, we were exceptional. We were clinical, we were ruthless, our high press was outstanding, we really won balls in great areas, the formation was top, and all these kinds of things you want to see as a coach, worked out really great.
Manchester United has won only one of its last five matches in the Premier League and had to come back from 2-0 down. during the week to win 3-2 in a thriller versus Atalanta. Today Cristiano Ronaldo could not do much. His team was trashed from the moment they stepped on the pitch. Coach Solskjaer is seeing his days numbered as the talents in the squad are invisible on the pitch and the objectives were clear at the start of the season: to win the League, is the Norwegian still the man to lift up the team?
Solskjaer on the loss:
“It’s not easy to say something apart from it’s the darkest day I’ve had leading these players and we weren’t good enough, individually and as a team. You can’t give a team like Liverpool those chances, unfortunately, we did. The whole performance wasn’t good enough, that’s for sure. We’ve created openings, they’ve had chances and they’ve been clinical. We didn’t take our chances early on and the third goal is the one that decided the game.
Early on, I felt we started sloppily and maybe a bit not confident enough. Not trusting ourselves. We gave the ball away, we kicked it out the first three or four minutes. Then we get the big massive opening, good attack, one-on-one with the keeper. We don’t take it and they then score with their first and second chance and at 2-0 down you have to go for it. You have to, we can’t lay down and keep it down to 2-0. We had chances, they had chances. They took theirs, we didn’t.
I’m devastated and I’m as low as I’ve ever been when I’ve been at this fantastic football club. We’ve had dark days here before and we’ve always bounced back.”