Spoils shared in Anfield stinker
Liverpool 0 Manchester United 0, 17th December 2023.
LIVERPOOL 0
MANCHESTER UNITED 0
A crowd of over 57,000, the biggest seen at Anfield in over 50 years, bore witness today to a game that the statisticians would have you believe was a one sided attacking affair from the home team Reds with 34 shots raining in on the goal of error prone Manchester United goalkeeper André Onana, 8 of which troubled him into goal denying saves, whilst Liverpool also racked up 12 corners to United’s 0, 3 times as many successful passes and a dominating ball possession of 69%. Another statistic would have you believe that the visiting “Red Devils” of Manchester United ended the game with 10 men after the late dismissal of Diogo Dalot for repeated dissent aimed at referee Michael Oliver, and this much is true. But the visitors were hardly, in the footballing vernacular, “hanging on” for a drawn point or grimly defending their goal from repeated attacks from Liverpool, for they were not, and to dispense with the dreaded statistics for a final time, whilst Liverpool did indeed have 8 shots on target, Onana wasn’t overly troubled or stretched with any of these goal attempts whereby United’s one and only effort on target, after a smart sweeping move on 66 minutes involving the visitors best player Antony and stand-in captain Scott McTominay, released Rasmus Højlund who was foiled at close range by Reds shot stopper, Alisson Becker.
In truth, this was a drab, unspectacular game and although carrying the huge baggage of immense history between these two north west giants of English football, it was a quiet affair played out in front of the largest crowd seen at Anfield in generations. Whilst the visitors posed zero attacking threat in the first half and only Højlund’s guilt edged chance in the second, Liverpool fared little better in a stinker of a first half only enlivened by a Virgil van Dijk header on 27 minutes that forced Onana into perhaps his toughest save of the day but very little else as Mo Salah, Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez all struggled and failed to find that final “killer” ball or incisive pass in the final, attacking third of the pitch
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Although vastly improved in the second half, the Reds still rarely threatened the United goal aside from Trent Alexander-Arnold shaving the outside of the far post on 65 minutes and from yet another corner 12 minutes later, Ibrahima Konaté could and should have done better rather than shooting straight into the grateful arms of Onana. On a day and performance to forget in a hurry, Luis Díaz was sharp and inventive on the ball and arguably the Reds best player, Ryan Gravenberch, was forced from the field through injury on the hour. Aside from this, it was another clean sheet for Alisson Becker and another Premier League game passes with the Reds only having an early season VAR inflicted defeat at Tottenham Hotspur to spoil their otherwise brilliant seasonal record.
Away from an eerily quiet and downbeat Anfield, Arsenal’s 2–0 defeat of Brighton and Hove Albion ensured they snagged top spot in the Premier League ahead of their visit to Anfield in 6 days time for their pre-Christmas meeting with the Reds. Liverpool will have to be vastly improved for this table topping clash next week lest the “Gunners”, and everyone’s favourites to lift this season’s Premier League, open up a sizeable gap at the top of the League.
Time will tell.
It always does.
A final word from The Boss
“Let me say, besides the result, I have a lot of positives about this game. You could say the decisive part, the scoring part, obviously was not there today. Maybe one or two were a bit unlucky and in others moments not calm enough, a bit too much in a rush. But the start in the game was the best we had this season, the counter-pressing was the best we had this season, the intensity was outstanding and the amount of finishes is outstanding. But when you have this amount of finishes, you should have a few more on target — that’s another point which was obviously not great. And the goal, if we would have scored it whenever, it would have changed everything because they were obviously not here to lose somehow and they really wanted the result. They fought hard for it and credit to them”.
“So we just had to keep going and try pretty much everything. We changed system, brought on fresh players and everything could have worked out if we just make this one better decision. We were really unlucky with the Trent finish, I would say. I think Onana didn’t even react on that because it just didn’t make any sense because if the balls rolls in, it’s in — but it rolls on the wrong side of the post. Ibou, if he is more often in these situations, I think he could’ve scored there. Because the way United defended was with a lot of passion. The way we played disorganised them quite frequently but, in the end, we didn’t see that because then they were deep in the box and then they just throw themselves into the balls and the shots. If a team defends like that, there’s always a free player because rather two than one wants to block the ball, so it means somebody else is probably free. We didn’t see that and that’s why we drew the game”.
Thanks for reading. Can I persuade you to take a peek at that rather wonderful 2023 self-published book on the Mighty Reds of Liverpool linked in the middle of this article? It’s my pride and joy and my best book yet!
Wow- a draw! (Or a tie, if you prefer).