Crunch game for Man United and Liverpool
The Red Devils host rivals on Monday
THE TWO most successful teams in the history of English football will go head to head on Monday night, with 20-time top flight champions Manchester United hosting 19-time champions Liverpool at Old Trafford.
However, despite the two clubs’ historical success, both sides go into Monday night’s game winless in the league.
Part of that statistic can be put down to the fact that this is the first league meeting between the pair to take place in the month of August since 1950, but neither outfit has set the world alight in their opening two league games of the season.
The crisis at this point seems infinitely deeper in Manchester than it is on Merseyside — United were played off the park on the opening day by Brighton & Hove Albion at home before being unceremoniously thrashed 4-0 away at Brentford the following weekend.
The results and performances in those two games, which have left United languishing at the bottom of the Premier League, were disastrous but at the same time almost predictable from a team and a club which has regressed into a state of malaise in the nine years since the retirement of their legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
A disappointing season last term was followed by an underwhelming transfer window in the summer in which the club failed to acquire many of its major targets or fix the major problems in their disjointed and unbalanced squad, leaving new manager Erik Ten Hag without the tools to implement his tactics.
The club’s fans are already irate and have continued their calls for the owners, the Glazer family, to sell the club, though it seems that the Glazers themselves have no intention of relinquishing control of the club.
Liverpool come into the game off the back of two draws in the league, having been held to a 22 stalemate at newly promoted Fulham on the opening day before having to rescue a point at home to Crystal Palace on Monday after having fallen behind.
Their struggles were compounded when new £85 million striker Darwin Nunez was given a straight red card for headbutting Palace defender Joachim Andersen.
The points dropped have led some to believe that Liverpool’s chances of winning the league this season are already slim to none, especially with their new star striker having shown such temperamental weakness at such an early stage. Liverpool still go into the match as hot favourites, with it expected that their residual quality will be enough to beat a side which looked all at sea at Brentford last Saturday.
Liverpool scored nine goals without reply in the sides’ two meetings last season, and have not been beaten by Manchester United in the league since January 17, 2016, when Wayne Rooney scored the game’s only goal to give Louis van Gaal’s side all three points against a Liverpool side which included Simon Mignolet and Nathaniel Clyne among its starting XI, and saw Jordan Ibe, Steven Caulker, and Christian Benteke come off the bench. Times have somewhat changed since then.