It was a surprise when Manchester United decided not to sack Erik ten Hag at the end of last season after Premier League and Champions League campaigns which had both been among the worst in the history of the club.
Surely the new Jim Ratcliffe-led brains trust running the club would deem that level of performance unacceptable, and take the chance to start a new project with a new coach of their choosing. Surely they would rather be regarded as too ruthless rather than too soft.
Instead they yielded to a mood of fan euphoria after the FA Cup final victory over Manchester City, and decided to give ten Hag another chance. Three games and two defeats into the new Premier League season that sentimental choice already looks unwise. It would be one thing to believe that a new coach would soon purge the familiar flaws United displayed in a painful 0-3 defeat to Liverpool. Can anyone really expect that from the same guy who has already been presiding over this mediocrity for two seasons?
As Liverpool are discovering it can feel good to be at the beginning of something. They didn’t want to lose Jurgen Klopp. But rather than seeming overawed by the reputation and popularity of the man he was replacing, Arne Slot has arrived with the attitude that he can actually improve on what Klopp was doing.
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It’s not as though Liverpool played a perfect season in 23-24. There was no better illustration of the flaws of the late Klopp team than the two matches they played at Old Trafford: a 2-2 draw in the league after leading 1-0, a 4-3 defeat in the FA Cup after leading 2-1 and 3-2, their energy and enterprise fatally undermined by crass defensive errors and wastefulness in attack.
Before the first game of this season Slot talked about what he wanted to see from his team: “We’re trying to find the balance between trying to create chaos at certain moments and trying to keep possession of the ball a bit longer in other moments.”
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The obvious risk is that you tilt too far towards caution and end up playing, as Arsene Wenger used to say, with the handbrake on. But so far Liverpool have struck a good balance.
An example of the change in emphasis could be seen at around 40 minutes when Andy Robertson won the ball with an interception and ran forward towards halfway, before laying it off sideways. Klopp would always have expected Robertson to keep charging forward in support of the attack. Now he stopped running, leaving others to carry on the move, and tucked back into his defensive position.
Most of the time, however, Slot’s team were still doing the things that Klopp prized most. Each of the three goals came from situations where they won the ball pressing United’s build-up play in their own half.
Luis Diaz’s opener was the second consecutive goal United had conceded where two unmarked opponents were queuing up to score at their back post after Joao Pedro’s late winner last weekend at Brighton.
The obvious question as the goal went in: “Where was the [United] right back?” At the moment when Ryan Gravenberch started the attack by intercepting Casemiro’s sloppy pass, Noussair Mazraoui was crossing the halfway line on his way to occupy the attacking wide position he is supposed to take up when United have possession. He immediately turned and started running back but it was already too late.
Diogo Jota, for one, seemed to know exactly what was going to happen once Gravenberch had won that ball. He pointed first for Gravenberch to pass to Salah, then indicated that Salah should play the cross over the top, all while shepherding United’s central defenders to the near post.
If Jota appeared to be following a script it was because Liverpool had prepared for precisely these situations. After the match Slot would offer a lucid deconstruction of how United’s new pressing style had left their midfielders with more ground to cover, and how their tendency to push both full backs forward as much as possible made them vulnerable to just this kind of counterattack.
The second goal started with another Klopp principle: “chase them from behind”. Diaz surprised Casemiro by sneaking up behind him to poke the ball away; the Brazilian midfielder flopped in the hope of winning a free kick, but the referee was unimpressed. United’s exposed defence could not deal with the speed and accuracy of Salah’s pass and Diaz’s finish.
The third goal, 10 minutes into the second half, started with a pressing trap. Liverpool invited United to pass the ball to the unmarked Kobbie Mainoo, but by the time the young United midfielder was receiving the ball Alexis MacAllister was already challenging him. Salah was still in his accurate mood and swept a first-time shot past the poorly-positioned Onana.
This was a difficult situation for United: more than half an hour still to play and the game already over. On 60 minutes the crowd took out their frustration on Marcus Rashford. The United winger had a chance to run at Ibrahima Konate one on one, but decided not to take him on, instead turning back and retreating towards United’s half.
This may well have been the right decision by Rashford, who had no support and evidently did not believe he had the beating of Konate. The crowd nevertheless booed him for cowardice.
Nine minutes later ten Hag made two substitutions: Harry Maguire for Matthijs de Ligt, Amad Diallo for Alejandro Garnacho. The fans booed again: it sounded like they wanted Rashford gone. But it’s not Rashford who has been running this team since the summer of 2022.
