Manchester United suffered a 3-1 defeat at Anfield with Liverpool restoring their top table position with a convincing display in front of their own faithfuls.
Sadio Mane opening goal was crowned with two goals from Xherdan Shaqiri for the Reds win while Jesse Lingard scored the lone goal for Jose Mourinho's struggling side.
Mourinho and Klopp did not have time to even enjoy their seats as the match started on a very high octane even for a Premier league standard. Lukaku had his goal disallowed, rightfully though, for offside after Ashley Young delivered a free kick that was not attended to. Lukaku tried to tap in the goal but the raised flag adjudged him for offside.
David De Gea, as is his usual case, denied Firmino with a quick save in the 7th minute after he stretched fully to parry the ball away. The ball landed on salah’s path but Victor Lindelof dealt with the Egyptian this time around with a very important block.
Liverpool scored the opening goal after Young failed to stopSadio Mane’s forward surge. The Senegalese forward brought the ball down with some composure and fired in between De Gea’s legs and into the net. It was all deserved for the Reds as they had had some more than 10 attempts on goal while their Reds opponents had only one attempted shot on target.
Allison's mess, Lingard's glory
Lingard pounced on Allison’s error and pulled parity for United in the 33rd minute. The Brazillian tried to intercept a cross from Lukaku towards young full-back Diogo Dalot. The ball spilt onto Lingard’s path and the English footballer scored for a United side that had been pinned onto their area for the majority of that time.
Eric Bailly got into a challenge with Firmino and the Ivorian went down and the referee allowed the game to go on, the Liverpool forward forced a low shot that De Gea reacted to parry away. It landed on Naby Keita’s path but the United captain Young was there to block him but the ball slid out for a corner I the 52nd minute.
A flurry of Liverpool corners almost forced Man United concede the second but Van Dijk’s unsure header over the bar relived the visitors of the pressure. The Red Devils surged forward after handling the Reds pressure, Young delivered the ball onto Fellaini’s path but as the Belgian readied to take a header, Robertson cleared all these happening inside the two first minutes after hour mark of a beautiful game at Anfield.
Shaq's ten minutes of fame
Xherdan Shaqiri restored Liverpool’s lead barely minutes after introduction for Naby Keita. It was Mane again who made the dangerous move and low cross that De Gea looked to have whipped away. The ball landed on the path of the Swiss winger and Shaqiri just fired it into the net with the ball taking a deflection prior crossing the line.
Within ten minutes of his own play, Shaqiri got the third for Liverpool as another deflection saw his effort fired past De Gea in goal. It was a colourful counterattack by the Klopp charges that ended up recording the goal for the home side with the Swiss international endearing himself to the Kopp faithfuls.
Pre-Match stats
- Liverpool’s attacking trio of Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane are all yet to score or assist in a PL match for the club against United, despite playing a combined total of 855 minutes.
- Jose Mourinho has won 50 per cent of his PL away matches at Anfield, with four out of eight. That is the best win percentage among managers who have taken charge of five or more such fixtures in the competition.
- The Reds' tally of 42 points after 16 games is the fourth-best start to a campaign in top-flight history, behind Manchester City (46 points in 2017-18), Tottenham Hotspur (46 in 1960-61) and Chelsea (43 in 2005-06).
- They have kept 11 clean sheets in the last 12 home league games - with only Cardiff City's Callum Paterson scoring since conceding to West Ham United on February 24.
- Liverpool has failed to score in only seven of 60 home league games under Klopp; United is responsible for three of those shutouts.
- If this match finishes 0-0, it will be only the second time in history that the Reds have played out goalless draws at Anfield against the same team in three successive league campaigns. The previous instance was against Tottenham from 1969 to 1971.
- The last time the Reds put more than one goal past United at Anfield in the league was the day Dirk Kuyt netted a hat-trick in a 3-1 win in March 2011.
- Liverpool's current run of 28 home league games unbeaten (19 wins and nine draws) is their seventh-longest sequence of all-time and their best for nine years.
- Since taking over at Anfield, Klopp has beaten 25 of the 26 teams he has faced in the Premier League. The exception is United.
