Liverpool Bid To Avoid Crisis Against Fragile Man United At Anfield

It speaks to the volatile nature of football results that Manchester United have a legitimate claim to be considered the in-form team ahead of their trip to Anfield on Sunday.

It sounds absurd for all intents and purposes to suggest Ruben Amorim’s men arrive into the biggest fixture in the English football calendar with a spring in their step.

This, after all, is a team sitting 10th in the Premier League table with just 10 points after seven games, five adrift of Liverpool.

The optimism generated by an encouraging display on the opening day of the season against Arsenal has all but dissipated over the past two months, unlike Amorim’s dogmatic refusal to ditch his preferred 3-4-3 system.

“I am not going to change,” Amorim said after United were thrashed 3-0 in the Manchester derby by City in September.

“When I want to change my philosophy, I will change. If not, you have to change the man.”

It was a bold statement from the manager who oversaw United finishing 15th last season, their lowest league position since they were relegated in 1974, and a meek surrender to Tottenham in the Europa League final.

Conversely, Liverpool won the Premier League at a canter last season as Arne Slot became the first Liverpool manager to win the title at the first time of asking after club legends Joe Fagan and Sir Kenny Dalglish.

Not content with dominating the league in his first season in England, the Dutchman then embarked on a record spending spree in the summer, splurging £446.5m ($598m) on players, the most any club has ever spent in a single window.

Alexander Isak arrived from Newcastle on transfer deadline day for a British record £125m ($167m), surpassing the benchmark Liverpool had set in June when they acquired Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for £116.5m ($156m).

Hugo Ekitike, the Premier League’s third most expensive signing of the summer, also moved to Anfield for £79m ($106m) from Eintracht Frankfurt.

Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong, meanwhile, revamped Liverpool’s options at full-back.

The title, so the wisdom went, was Liverpool’s to lose.

That belief was strengthened as the reigning Premier League champions jumped out of the blocks, winning their first five league games, as well as beating Atletico Madrid in their Champions League opener and knocking Southampton out of the Carabao Cup.

If the results were impressive, the aura of inevitability around Liverpool even more so.

In each of their first four Premier League fixtures, the Reds scored the winner after the 83rd minute mark, repeating the feat against Atletico Madrid and Southampton.

Why has Liverpool’s form tailed off?

But over the past three weeks, Liverpool have gone from winning games in the closing stages to losing them.

Slot’s men lost to a 97th minute winner against Crystal Palace and were denied a point by a 95th minute goal against Chelsea a week later.

There was no late heartbreak in the loss to Galatasaray, but a patchy performance in Istanbul was exacerbated by an injury to Alisson, with the goalkeeper set to be sidelined for a month.

The defeat to Chelsea marked the first time in over two years Liverpool have lost three consecutive games in all competitions and allowed Arsenal to overtake them at the top of the Premier League table.

And if the Gunners’ one-point lead is no reason for panic, Liverpool’s performances this season have left Slot plenty to ponder.

Isak and Wirtz are yet to justify their price tag, with both players still to open their account for their new club.

There are, of course, mitigating circumstances. Isak is still getting up to speed after effectively missing pre-season with Newcastle to force a move to Liverpool.

Wirtz, meanwhile, is not the first player needing time to adapt to the furious pace of the Premier League.

The German is yet to score or register an assist in the Premier League, but according to data from Opta no player across the top five European leagues has created more chances than Wirtz’s total of 22 in all competitions so far this season.

Mohamed Salah’s performances have arguably been more of a concern, with the Egyptian scoring just twice so far in the league and is yet to form a cohesive unit with Cody Gakpo, Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike.

Perhaps it was always a tall order to expect Salah to match the extraordinary heights he reached last season, when he won the Premier League Player of the Year after scoring 29 goals and registering 18 assists.

Worse still, teams are now exploiting the space behind Salah, who has been relieved of defensive responsibilities from Slot.

“As long as you rest me defensively, then I will provide offensively.” the 33-year-old told Sky Sports last April.

The trade-off paid off in spectacular fashion last season, but Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure to Real Madrid appears to have altered that dynamic.

And yet, the visit of United could offer the perfect tonic for Salah, who has scored 16 goals in 17 meetings against Liverpool’s arch-rivals, whose last win at Anfield came in January 2016.

If Slot has issues to address, the same can be said of Amorim.

Ruben Amorim retains United backing

While Liverpool have already faced five teams currently in the top eight in the Premier League, two of United’s three wins have come against newly-promoted sides and both at home.

The win over Chelsea, meanwhile, also came at Old Trafford with the visitors reduced to 10 men five minutes into the game.

United are yet to win away from home in the Premier League this season, with a draw at Fulham in August the only occasion in which they have avoided defeat on the road in the league so far this term.

Amorim’s men have conceded eight times away from home in the Premier League, scoring just twice in the process and are the only team in the top-half of the table to have a negative goal difference.

Perhaps most incredibly of all, United are yet to win two consecutive league games under the Portuguese, an astonishing statistic.

Knocked out of the Carabao Cup by fourth division Grimsby Town on penalties last month, the FA CUp is United’s only realistic chance of a trophy this season.

Still, Amorim retains the backing of the club’s minority shareholder, Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

“He has not had the best of seasons,” Sir Jim Ratcliffe told The Times’ The Business podcast during the international break.

“Ruben needs to demonstrate he is a great coach over three years. That’s where I would be.”

And yet, there are small sliver of optimism for the Portuguese, namely in summer signings Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko.

The duo have made an instant impact with the latter scoring in each of his last two Premier League appearances, and Senne Lammens looked assured in his debut in goal against Sunderland.

For all of that, United remains worryingly fragile and any sign of progress is normally followed by a swift setback.

A win at Anfield would go some way to reverse the trend and would if nothing else ensure they are not the Premier League’s crisis club next week.

A dubious honour Liverpool must avoid at all costs.