For Manchester United, this was the first game of the second half the season; for Liverpool, the last game of the first half of the campaign. And while Ruben Amorim was given reason to believe that maybe things can get better for his side, Arne Slot will be hoping his own men will not look as fallible as they were here.
Last month’s Manchester derby felt nothing like the occasion shown on the ticket until that late drama. This game had no such issue, with Liverpool kindly dropping their standards while Manchester United significantly raised theirs to offer up a game worthy of its Liverpool vs Manchester United billing.
United learned from Tottenham’s tactical blunders against Liverpool and set themselves in a nice, wide, organised 5-4-1 designed to starve Liverpool of time and space on the flanks, where Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah and Cody Gakpo can be at their most destructive.
If Liverpool got into the final third, the United midfield would drop back to within a few yards of the defensive line; after winning the ball, United would then try to work the ball quickly out to their own wings to effect a counter-attack.
That worked very nicely, and starved Liverpool of a battleground they have enjoyed so many victories on this season. But in the transitions between United’s attack and defence, the space between the United rearguard and the midfield could be a wide, open gulf.
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It was here that Liverpool felt most likely to win the game, but they had to be quick and purposeful to get into that space. The first time they did so, thanks to Luis Diaz dropping deeper and Ryan Gravenberch running in to take his place, it led to Cody Gakpo shooting wide from a narrow angle and an inquisition led by Bruno Fernandes as to how it had happened.
Liverpool tried to find that gap again, but each them they did, the United sentries at the back became a little bit wiser to it. Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Light were both excellent at stepping out if required to close down those passes as soon as they were received; if their man was skilful enough to wriggle free, the other would be swiftly across as cover.
Unusually for them this season, Liverpool seemed unsure as to how to respond. United almost seemed to be begging for them to commit more men forward and leave Rasmus Hojlund to potter about in more space.
It was classic rope-a-dope, and United should have taken fuller advantage of it when it worked for them in the first half. Amad Diallo somehow put a diving header away from goal off a very presentable Diogo Dalot cross midway through the first half, and Hojlund lacked the composure to do anything but straight shoot at the onrushing Alisson after racing clear of the Liverpool centre-backs to get one-on-one with the keeper just before the break.
Liverpool can’t say they weren’t warned about an all-round complacent performance, but they failed to heed those lessons, and everything United had been doing well came to the fore in the opening goal.
With Arne Slot already furiously scheming away with his assistants over an iPad to find a solution to a woeful start to the second half, Dalot once again gave Alexander-Arnold the runaround to cross from the left, and Alexander-Arnold was far too ambitious in his effort to find Salah on the halfway line.
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Lisandro Martinez, per his instructions, nipped in to intercept, and kept his run going to get into the box and receive a clever disguised pass from Bruno Fernandes before firing in off the underside of the bar.
Like Dale Cooper shoving a fork in a socket, that shock was enough for Liverpool to recall their true identity for a spell. Gakpo’s brilliant movement and trickery at the byline allowed him to cut back away from De Ligt before firing into the top corner to end United’s lead just seven minutes after they had taken it.
United could then have no real complaints about the handball decision that went against them following a VAR check as Mac Allister’s header struck De Light’s unnaturally outstretched arm, with Andre Onana unable to stop Salah’s penalty despite going the right way and getting a hand to it.
Just like that Manchester derby, though, there was still time for Amad to have the last word as that Liverpool complacency kicked in again – not least from the bench, with Slot’s refusal to take off the awful Alexander-Arnold until after the equaliser ending up costly.
The right-back was again blitzed up the left, this time by Alejandro Garnacho, and his diagonal cutback ran past a whole line of red shirts before Amad slotted past the sluggish, wrong-footed Alisson and into the net for 2-2.
This time, Liverpool remained on the ropes, aside from Conor Bradley’s narrow-angle attempt to beat Onana at his near post – and United really, really should have won it with virtually the last kick of the game, somehow blazing over the bar after a United counter-attack gave him the biggest chance of the entire game in the final seconds.
United, once again, lived up to a big occasion; now Amorim needs to get them playing like this in those much more prosaic fixtures they have to generate the adrenaline themselves, rather than it nominally being an integral part of the occasion.
