Manchester United 1-0 Liverpool

Javier Hernandez celebrates after scoring the only goal of the game

It took me a whole 24 hours after the game started to figure out how to start this article, so I’m going to start it with the two words that have been flying through my head – frustrating and uninspiring. I almost wished I hadn’t watched it. The game was 90 minutes of ‘almost’ and ‘nearly’ passes, shots and runs mistimed to a stunning degree of consistency. The sudden change in formation worked tactically, United struggled to deal with us during most of the match but it was clear to me that the players hadn’t trained with it for long enough and it relies a lot on a number 10 with a passing ability better than Victor Moses (i.e. Coutinho, or even Joe Allen).

The new formation put a lot of pressure on the two wing-backs, which brought up two problems. On the right, Glen Johnson is perfect for this formation, unfortunately he isn’t fit right now and Jordan Henderson isn’t perfect for roles as a right-sided midfielder or a right-back and therefore it’s fair to assume his adequate performances in recent weeks is the general standard we can expect from him when he is played out of position.

On the left, I am going to assume the Enrique is our first choice until Cissokho can get fit and prove me differently. Enrique was, in my opinion, the most infuriating player again. He generally played well, good even, but it was his own wastefulness and lack of focus, which stopped it from being a fantastic performance. Whilst fulfilling his new duties as a pundit for Sky Sports, a number of weeks ago, Jamie Carragher claimed that he disliked playing with Enrique because he was unpredictable and didn’t listen, we saw examples of both during one moment in this match.

The ball broke to him on the left, just outside the box, Steven Gerrard could be seen screaming at him from nearby to hold onto the ball and wait for an opportunity to reveal itself. Enrique shot well wide and it was a goal kick. Our good work undone in a moment of recklessness. This is a player that at the age of 27 has only 4 senior career goals to his name. Enrique played well, but it was truly infuriating how inconsistent he was. His ability to be instrumental in a win over an ancient rival shouted down by an egotistical desire to steal the headlines for himself.

I felt that Mignolet and the three centre-backs did well. The culprits for the goal, in my opinion, were Enrique, Gerrard and Lucas. As the cross came in, all three were watching the ball and not one of them watched Hernandez’s run. Enrique didn’t realise that he’d made it until after he’d ran past him, and Gerrard and Lucas didn’t realise he’d lost Enrique until they turned around and watched him latch onto the cross and score. Too much watching and too little defending.

It wasn’t a poor decision from the manager in terms of tactics and marking, it was just terrible defending on the part of those three. In open play, I did feel that Lucas and Gerrard looked more comfortable with three centre-backs behind them instead of only two to protect, especially as Toure and Sakho both burst out of the defence to support the midfield at carious moments. However, I’m still unconvinced by them as a pairing and if we persist with this formation I would like to see Allen given a chance in Lucas’s position. He looked weak covering for him last year but with three centre-backs, he’d have less defensive responsibilities and could focus more on retaining possession and distributing the ball.

Victor Moses did okay for me, I say this as he is evidently a stand-in for Philippe Coutinho and he is used to playing out wide rather than directly in the central attacking midfield role. He had one of, if not our best, chances in the game, he could have done better but a diving header is never easy to direct and he did relatively well to test the keeper. He attempted, on a number of occasions, to create opportunities for himself and the two forwards with intricate link-up play but you could tell that the understanding between him and his teammates isn’t quite there yet. This is a problem that will fix itself through time and once he is replaced with Coutinho that won’t really be a problem at all. One of my worries with this formation is that Moses won’t get a lot of game time once Coutinho comes back from his injury, therefore Sterling and Ibe will get even less game time. Both of those youngsters have the potential to reach the very highest level of football. But to get there, they need to put in hard work and to be given the right amount of first team experience from a young age.

I believe that Rodgers’s main reason for changing to this formation is that it allows Suarez, Sturridge and Coutinho to play central, attacking roles. In a month’s time, we’ll be really to reap the benefits from this, but right now Suarez looks a bit rusty. Coutinho is injured and because of this, Sturridge has looked isolated. We kept the ball well yesterday and looked the better team, but we lacked penetration and the cutting edge that will come to us when our team is at its best.

In conclusion, this is not a terrible game to lose. Like the lack of Europa League football, it allows us to focus more on the league, and right now we don’t need any distractions. It’s never nice to lose, and it’s especially unpleasant to lose to United but console yourself in knowing they’d have much rather won at Anfield over three weeks ago. I like the new formation and I hope it stays. However, it shows that there are certain players we can’t afford to lose, and therefore need to buy cover in January.