The most successful teams in English club football, 20-time champion Manchester United and 19-time winner Liverpool will lock horns in a Premier League match at Anfield this Sunday. This meeting between the English football juggernauts will be the 239th in the history of football, with the Red Devils now leading the overall head-to-head record with 90 wins in all competitions, as compared to Kop’s 80 victories. Victory for United will make them continue to pressure second-placed Manchester City in the table, while a win for the Reds is set to provide vital prospects for the team to qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League.
Advantage United in This Season’s First Meeting
The first leg of this Premier League fixture saw Erik ten Hag’s side came out as the winner in a 2-1 triumph over Jürgen Klopp’s team. The win kickstarted an outstanding run of form for United, allowing them to be within contention of winning all four major silverwares that the team is contesting, in which they had already captured the Carabao Cup after beating Newcastle United, while the loss was part of the Reds’ struggles throughout the entire season.
The Red Devils are going to Anfield as the favourite this time around, because they had only lost once in their previous 11 games in the Premier League. Besides, after coming back from the 2022 FIFA World Cup break in Qatar, no teams are able to match Manchester United’s resurgence in this regard, with the team now collected a total of 23 points to date.
But all is not lost for the home side, especially when Klopp’s team had been able to win three of out their last four matches in the Premier League, beating Merseyside rival Everton, the then Top Four team Newcastle United as well as Wolves. The Reds will have another record in mind that Manchester United had not been able to defeat them since January 2016, with the home side now unbeaten in six consecutive matches against the Red Devils at Anfield in all competitions.
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Rashford vs Salah
Both men scored against the opposing team the first time Manchester United and Liverpool met earlier this season, and it would be silly to think that they are not eager to bag goal(s) for their team on Sunday. Marcus Rashford is undoubtedly the most in-form player across the globe at the moment, with the player now on 17 goals in 20 games in all competitions since the 2022 FIFA World Cup break and 25 goals in the season. As for the Egyptian national team captain Salah, his strike against Wolves last time out was his 20th goal this season, making him to register 20 or more goals in each of his six seasons with the Merseyside Red since transferring to the team back in 2017. The two of them are set to go on a personal battle to lead their own strike force to take down the opponent’s defensive backline.
Klopp: “Man United Is the Team in Form at the Moment.”
55-year-old German Jürgen Klopp started coaching Liverpool back in 2015, but is now going through arguably his toughest season as the manager of Kop. When asked about Sunday’s game against Manchester United, he believes that United, alongside teams like Arsenal and Manchester City are the in-form teams in the Premier League at the moment. He also added: “I thought Anfield proved a point tonight again, it was super, super-enjoyable. It felt like a proper unit, we were all together – I loved that. That’s what we need again on Sunday, but of course it will be difficult.”
Klopp’s star centre-back Virgil van Dijk told reporters that his team will need a “Big atmosphere” to play Sunday’s game against the Red Devils and urged everyone to be ever ready for the clash. His remark read “I think we need a big atmosphere on Sunday. I think today obviously it was quite nervous and hopefully on Sunday we can get everyone in their best – including us, because we obviously have to do the hard work on the pitch against an in-form Man United. So, we will recover now and we will be ready for Sunday of course”.
In Spain’s Copa del Rey, Barcelona beat Real Madrid to lead 1-0 in aggregate in the semifinal round.
