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MOTD: Liverpool 2-0 Manchester United
Liverpool defeated Manchester United 2-0 in a vibrant display in the first leg of their Europa League Round of 16 tie courtesy of a Robert Firmino goal and Daniel Sturridge penalty.
The Reds’ verve underlined United’s flat performance and their sense of direction under Jürgen Klopp sharply contrasted United’s comparative lack of personality and the sense of drift with Louis van Gaal at the helm. At no point in Klopp’s six months in charge have Liverpool produced a more intense performance, whereas United have never appeared further from being the team Van Gaal professes to desire, and only David de Gea’s fantastic performance in goal kept United from suffering even further embarrassment on the night.
Nathaniel Clyne was excellent on the night, but then again, there was plenty of praise for Klopp to dish out in his post-match press conference. “It’s not the first time that Clyney has played well and been very important for us. But tonight, if we start giving grades, if you want this, then there are a lot of good grades,” said the German manager, via Liverpool’s official website. “Simon Mignolet, we can start with him, he was really good. Everything, absolutely no mistake in this game and it’s difficult to stay concentrated when you always know each cross or corner or each free-kick is really dangerous because [Marouane] Fellaini is on the pitch. Emre and Hendo did a brilliant job, Phil, Adam, great, Roberto, Daniel, as long as he was on the pitch, that was really good.”
“The substitutes, Joe Allen when he came in [was] so important, so good. Divock Origi, [gave us] again the control of the game because they couldn’t play like they wanted because they knew each bad pass was a counter-attack because Divock and his speed is dangerous too. It was good, so I don’t have to compare the players – tonight I’m really pleased with all of them.”
United had just a single shot on target all night, despite maintaining a respectable 44% of possession on the road. Yet their attack was toothless, in stark contrast with Liverpool’s incisive front line. Twenty-minutes in, Roberto Firmino found Clyne’s darting run into the box with a lovely, outside-of-the-boot through ball from the right and Memphis Depay dragged Clyne before the full-back could break in behind United’s back-line. Daniel Sturridge cooly slotted the penalty into the bottom left corner of the net with deadly precision.
Just three minutes later, Liverpool came tantalizingly close to doubling their lead as Sturridge opened up space for a shot with stepovers down the right side of the box. The Englishman dragged a low effort wide across goal, but Philippe Coutinho was unmarked at the far post to tap the ball home. He probably would have put more weight on his finish if he had thought David de Gea had any chance whatsoever of recovering, but the Spanish goalkeeper somehow threw himself back across the goal-line to scoop the ball away.
In the thirty-first minute, Coutinho turned on Schneiderlin twenty-five yards out from goal and drove into the box before clipping the ball across to Sturridge. Chris Smalling got across to make the diving block, yet slipped before he could cut out the cross and Sturridge was put through on goal down the left. Once again, however, De Gea came up big to make a crucial block at his near post.
Lallana forced De Gea into another excellent stop in the fortieth minute, nipping ahead of his marker at the near post to poke Firmino’s driven cross from the right on target. De Gea got behind the ball to make the block but Liverpool’s pressure did not cease.
Allen played Jordan Henderson in down the right on the other side of the half and the English midfielder whipped in a cross to the near post. Michael Carrick was in the perfect position to clear the ball but was apparently caught in two minds between thwacking the ball away and trapping it and only succeeded in giving the ball right to Coutinho, who drove back into the middle and laid the ball off for Firmino to finish.
Liverpool comfortably closed out the game with a two goal lead and will be favored to close out the tie next week at Old Trafford.
“It was good, from the first second until the last,” said Klopp. “There were a few minutes in the second half where we lost a little bit of control, so we changed the system and again needed a few minutes to adapt to the new system. Then we were back in the game and in control again.”
Homepage photo credit: Kevin Walsh, via Flickr