Liverpool vs Manchester United, 17 January 2021, 4:30 PM
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This is the biggest of fixtures in club football alongside El Clasico. This is between the two most successful English clubs and it is bound to attract interest from all around the world regardless of the club one supports. It is probably the most interesting fixture for neutrals as well.
On top of this, recent developments have allowed Manchester United to overtake Liverpool in the Premier League table and they are sitting at the top of the table now. The most interesting fixture normally has become doubly interesting as the two sides are now competing for the highest honours in English football, the Premier League title. There is a long way to go in the season, however it's been more than a decade since these two sides were involved in a title race and it was in 2009.
These are the moments everyone is waiting for; A crunch game at the top of the table between two of the strongest rivals in the game. I'm sure emotions will be running high before, during and after the game. It will be doubly so, if the game is decided by freak moments, maybe a penalty, or a lapse in concentration. This game may not decide the title so early in the season, but it will present the winning team with a very good momentum to take it forward.
Manchester United are flying high. They might've won plenty of close games, but they've won a good number of those. A win will put them comfortably ahead of us (by 6 points) and it will keep them ahead of Manchester City.
Liverpool are, on the other hand, struggling for form. 2 draws and 1 defeat in the last 3 PL games is something that the club hasn't experienced in the last 3 years. Yet, we have the best possible man at helm in Jurgen Klopp, someone who will not get us to panic. He knows all we can do is to prepare well, try to cover up any signs of weaknesses we have shown in the last 3 games. A couple of those weaknesses have been in terms of creativity and finishing that has got us desperate towards the end of these games. What we did well in the last 2 seasons, was not to get desperate, but it is exactly what we did in recent games and it cost us. The key is to play our normal game and let the result take care of itself.
Manchester United is never an easy fixture for us despite our recent wins against them at Anfield. We have won this fixture in the last 2 seasons.
In 2015-16, we met in the Europa League, when they were under Van Gaal. We were out of our blocks quickly, got an early penalty which Sturridge tucked away. We were dominant for the whole game, but we had to wait until the 73rd minute for Firmino to put them away and win the game 2-0. We won the tie and eventually reached the finals where we lost disappointingly to Sevilla.
In 2016-17 and 2017-18, this fixture happened early in the season in October. Both happened when they were under Mourinho and both ended in 0-0 draws. They parked the bus in both games and De Gea had stormers making important saves. Nevertheless, we were on the ascendancy and they were on a decline in terms of the big picture.
In 2018-19, we took the lead through Sadio Mane with a wonderful technique to control the ball & hit on the volley. The pass from Fabinho was sumptuous. However, we conceded a goal to Lingard through an uncharacteristic spill from Alisson. We were then dominant for large parts of the game, but it took until 73 minutes (yes, you did read the same somewhere before - another coincidence) for Shaqiri to help us take the lead after coming from the bench. He sealed the win with another goal in 80 minutes.
In 2019-20, we were on an unparalleled form. We kept winning games through our skill, technique, tactics and running but also through sheer force of will. Van Dijk headed in to give an early start to us and then we dominated the rest of the game, but couldn't put them away until the famous goal from Salah with a pass from Alisson. Of course, Alisson had to repeat Reina's feat and run all the way to celebrate with the goalscorer. It reminded me of Dudek repeating Grobbelaar on another big moment in our history.
This game, on the context of the table, is more important than most of those games. Will we regain our form by putting away one of our biggest rivals?
Manchester United are expected to be strong on the counter-attack with their pace and linkup play and they will be looking for penalties when they come anywhere near our box. Fabinho will have to be watchful as he has recently given away fouls in and around the box. We need to be careful on the ball and not make any mistakes considering we're expected to keep a large amount of the ball. We should also be vary of the ball over the top to target the space between our Full Back and Center Back. And we need to start being clinical again. If we play to our full strengths, we can win this, but we haven't been doing so recently, which is a bit of a worry going into a big game like this. But then they say that form goes out of the window in these games, and we need to take advantage of that.
Joe Gomez and Virgil Van Dijk are out for the foreseeable future. Jota and Tsimikas are still injured and unavailable. It is not clear if Keita will be back, but there will also be eyes closely watching if there will be a return for Matip, which could dictate the way we play.
Hoping we have another great moment in this game to add to our glittering history. I'm sure there will be plenty of nails bitten, plenty of tense moments, plenty of close shaves and plenty of hearts beating up and down. Whatever be the result, I hope we as fans don't begin to panic or point fingers as we've been doing recently. Let us stick together and show the world what Liverpool family is all about. YNWA! Fingers crossed for a win!
