Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 2 Manchester United 2 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
AGONISINGLY poor.
Go wherever you like after that, but agonisingly poor.
There is one phase of the game where Liverpool individually and collectively look like a side competing for a league title – 0-1 to 2-1. Other than that, Liverpool aren’t good enough. For the first time since Nottingham Forest, it is more than fair to just say that.
What wasn’t good enough? The touch. The touch wasn’t good enough. So many Liverpool players were unable to get and keep the ball under control.
What wasn’t good enough? The covering. So often Liverpool failed to cover for each other and especially cover the gap Mo Salah leaves.
What wasn’t good enough? The composure. Liverpool found themselves hurried when they didn’t get their first touch right.
What wasn’t good enough? The 50-50s. We barely won a battle, first half. There was a lack of sharpness and certainty and sheer commitment in key moments. Liverpool were disappointingly flaccid.
What wasn’t good enough? The whole fucking show. The wrong team was picked. The wrong team never sorted themselves out. No one did Salah’s graft. No one grabbed it when it was broken in midfield. Liverpool limped along. It was the manager’s poorest showing of the season and the crowd – of which I am a part – was frankly not good enough either.
This: Manchester United are not fucking divvies. Their manager is no longer a divvy. Not good enough.
Virgil van Dijk is rightly frustrated by all of that. He shouts, waves at them, and bellows instructions. Liverpool’s defending is a victim of the weather, the ongoing contracts process, general disorganisation, and age. It is not the worst defending you have ever seen, but it’s not good enough today.
Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson are not quick enough in mind or feet. They let things go. Ibrahima Konate, back from injury, is naturally off the pace. Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister have a number of mistakes and mis-paces between them.
Curtis Jones looked like the old Curtis Jones. Decision making poor. Incision poor. Covering poor. He deserves to be hooked. Not good enough today.
Where Liverpool end up is where they should have started or at least 50 per cent of that – with an actual number nine. Manchester United’s back three have it all too easy and Darwin Nunez is a nightmare for them until he gets booked. And then he is a non-entity.
This is the constant Nunez paradox writ large. He has no gears. It is either all in to x, y or z, or a phantom. I have no time for phantoms. But then today is a bad time for that sort of logic, because there are too many phantoms – the whole of Liverpool’s side, including the goalkeeper for their equaliser, may as well have been ghosts. Manchester United wander through and are almost surprised to score.
And there there is the weather. Snow never sticks that much in Liverpool. We are right by the sea. Our main weather feature is wind. Things blow over. The Irish Sea keeps our climate more temperate than inland Britain. So the chance of the game being called off wasn’t high, thankfully.
Walking round the city before the match there are hundreds who have travelled long distances for this. You might have grown up on the other side of the world, but you know what Liverpool versus Manchester United at Anfield is, and you are desperate not to have it taken from you at the last minute because of the weather.
What we get is not snow but rain. A huge amount of wet rain. Rain pours off the ends of noses, pours through shirts and shorts, and causes balls and players to slip and err. In the end, the rain is the same for both sides. It adds drama, but it isn’t the reason a far better Liverpool side are held to a draw.
It isn’t a reason not to be good enough. Isn’t a reason to drop points. Nor is what happens last night – if before this weekend you offer me parity with Arsenal I take it, but that can absolutely fuck off too. In this moment. At this time.
Agonisingly poor. Bar Alexis Mac Allister and perhaps the two centre backs no Liverpool player is worthy of a 7/10. When it goes 2-1, Liverpool’s job is to find a way for 3-1, not do what they do.
Allowing for their manager being good, he gets to make today hard, but not make today this. This game has fallen perfectly for Ruben Amorin’s beleaguered Manchester United. They were in desperate need of a common enemy in order to stop blaming each other for the state of things.
Today, we give them 61,000 of them. This is Anfield, you can imagine their manager saying, a good fight here could save all our skins. Onana, in goal, shows this fight at its best. He is determined and even has a good go at saving Mo Salah’s penalty, diving the right way and isn’t far away.
But fuck that. Fuck excuses and fuck all of this being agonisingly poor.
Needs to be better. Who’s next? Nottingham Forest? We owe them. Into them.
No hiding places. A league to be won. 2025 has to bend our way. You get one of these.
No more.
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Very surprised not to read more about the atmosphere in the ground today. Never known it as… strange. Was completely counterproductive.
Almost from minute one huge numbers of our fans were on players backs, and I get the Reds were poor today but it did not help. That cannot happen again. It will not get us any nearer the title. In fact it will make us get further away.
Particularly when it comes to Trent. We’ve turned on him. I don’t know what it was like near you but the shouts from many around me were horrible. And I get it, I’m really disappointed and annoyed at him myself for running down his contract, and his performance bordered on disgrace at times, especially off the ball, but we simply cannot have this from now until the end of the season in the midst of a title chase.
Hopefully you’ll address it on the free podcast so as many can hear about it as possible and knock it on the head, because we’re going to be in tight games, under pressure, things at the top of the league could easily get close, and we need people to stay calm.