With Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag in the middle of a challenging spell with the club, he has to take his team to one of the most
intimidating stadiums in European football against an age-old rival Liverpool in the Premier League on December 17.
The Anfield crowd has not been easy on United players in the past and the club’s most recent meeting in the league suggested the same as well.
Jurgen Klopp’s men handed their rivals a ‘freakish’ 7-0 defeat at home last time round. The seven goal drubbing was the heaviest defeat for Manchester United against Liverpool and also the club’s heaviest defeat since 1931.
“We take that (7-0) in our memory, but you have to also take the benefit from it and learn from it and Sunday we can prove that,” he said. “It was a bad experience, but it’s not similar — you start again. We will not ignore it, but we go there and we will be confident, and I know my players, to go there and be confident from the start to the end. We have to fight there, we have challenge there. We go to win there.” Ten Hag said in his pre-match press conference.
United’s Poor Run of Form
With the club having to face a disappointing exit from Europe this week with a 1-0 home defeat to Bayern Munich, this clearly is not the time Ten Hag would have wanted to face a Liverpool side which are at the top of the league.
Placed 6th in the league, the Red Devils have already lost 7 out of 16 league games and are in a tough fight to qualify for next year’s Champions League as well.
Injuries and disciplinary issues have plagued the squad with regular starters like Lisandro Martinez, Casemiro out with injury. Jadon Sancho has been made to sit out games due to a fall-out with the manager and has not featured in any of the recent games for the club as well.
Liverpool Going Strong
League leaders Liverpool are having a decent season at the moment with the club advancing to the Round of 16 in the UEFA Europa League on December 15.
The Reds are in contention for the title this year with the likes of Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez firing on all cylinders this season.
Jurgen Klopp’s would be more than confident coming into the fixture considering the past results at Anfield.
“I never like when the headlines about United are not great before we play because it’s like, ‘OK, then it is the game where they can put everything right,’” Klopp said on Friday.
“I don’t follow United closely enough to know exactly what the problem is there, but I saw Erik ten Hag was manager of the month last month and saw they were the team in form in the last month so how can it be all wrong? I just don’t understand it.” he added.