Liverpool vs. Manchester United – There is no bigger battle in English football than this. Tomorrow (Sunday) the two converted rivals will take to the field at Anfield as this time, after too many years, it is a battle that could affect the fate of the championship. The Red Devils lead the table with 36 points, three more than the champion, with only a loss dropping them to second place. Going to be hot.
To get to the last time United and Liverpool finished in the top two places in the Premier League one has to go until 2009, when the Red Devils won a third consecutive championship four points behind the Mighty Reds. Since then, every season in which one of them has fought for the second championship has been very far away and the end of the whole fight has been rekindled.
And it turns out that the fight this time is reflected in mutual bites regarding penalties. After the loss to Southampton in which Pendel was not burned in favor of Liverpool, Jürgen Klopp He claimed: “In the last two years (since Ola Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed coach) United have received more penalties than Liverpool in the five and a half years I have been here.” The German’s announcement is in fact not true at all because the Mighty Reds won 30 penalties under him compared to 27 that United received under Solchiar (although this is indeed a very big difference), but that did not stop the opponent .
“I don’t really care what people say,” he declared The Portuguese Unequivocally when asked about Klopp’s statement. “Anthony Martial is one of the best players in the world in one-on-one situations on the pitch, Marcus Rashford is fast and can take a ball to a defensive player at any given moment and it makes sense that because of that they will be dropped on the pitch and we will win penalties.”
“People can say what they want, but my goal is to keep doing things right and scoring the penalties we get,” Fernandez continued. “When I played for Sporting Lisbon, Benfica and Porto also talked about penalties, probably to put pressure on the referees. Penalties are part of the game, for everyone.”
Liverpool have been looking bad lately and are counting three consecutive games without a league win, the last of which they suffered a very disappointing 1-0 draw from Southampton. However, since 2016, the champion has lost only once to the hated rival and is recording two consecutive victories at Anfield.
Liverpool’s injury blow is still here and big time, but it could very well be that it gets some good news. Joel Matip returned to team training ahead of the game when it was decided whether to include him. In the loss to Southampton, Klopp was forced to play with Jordan Henderson – 50:50 contact – as a stopper alongside Fabigno (who is also used to playing as a contact), and there is no doubt that the Cameroonian’s return is critical for him.
On the other hand, Manchester United are in a great period, have not lost in the last 11 league games and have finished with only two draws in the middle. Criticism of Solskjaer has disappeared and even Paul Pogba managed to silence the critics recently and scored the winning goal in a 0-1 win over Burnley, which was his second this season. Will that be enough against the nervous and determined Liverpool. We will know very soon.
