The Premier League so often refuses to conform to our expectations.
Many people thought this classic match-up would look a lot like Liverpool’s 7-0 win at Anfield last season. Others quietly wondered if Manchester United’s counter-attacking would get the better of a Liverpool midfield still vulnerable to fast breaks.
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But nobody thought it would be a frustrating draw, Liverpool's first 0-0 of the season and Man Utd’s first Premier League draw of 2023/24.
Liverpool will see this as two points dropped, as a tactical battle plan that never got going leading to lost momentum in the title race.
Ten Hag’s low-block 4-4-2 stifles hosts
Man Utd crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday night but were considerably more defensively robust against Bayern Munich than in the 3-0 defeat to AFC Bournemouth last weekend.
That’s because the Bournemouth loss had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and after months of issues in the defensive transition, Erik ten Hag decided to move United into a conservative shape.
Out went the high pressing and in came a low block, a defensive system and a compact 4-4-2 that kept bodies behind the ball.
It didn’t quite work against Bayern but it did against Liverpool, who just couldn’t break through the shell.
Wingers Alejandro Garnacho and Antony worked tirelessly to cut off passing lanes, holding narrow positions that nullified the hosts’ pressure, while Sofyan Amrabat and Kobbie Mainoo were assisted by the number of team-mates staying close by.
United held only 31 per cent possession and blocked 13 Liverpool shots. Things did not click on the counter - Rasmus Hojlund managed only 17 touches and United failed to score for a third match in a row - but that didn’t matter.
Liverpool never really looked like scoring and Man Utd will be delighted with a point.
Klopp’s Gakpo omission backfires
However, that might be giving Man Utd a little too much praise for shutting down a Liverpool team who simply were not on form. Passes were slow and touches were slightly off, making United’s job simpler than it ought to have been.
Perhaps Jurgen Klopp should take the blame for this. Knowing all about United’s issues in central midfield this season, it was surprising he did not look to copy the tactical approach deployed in Liverpool’s 7-0 victory last term.
That day, Cody Gakpo started in the middle of the front three, although he dropped so deep that the formation more resembled a diamond 4-4-2. Note how the positioning of Gakpo (No 18) created a diamond in that game.
Gakpo’s presence overwhelmed Man Utd, giving Liverpool the opportunity to play quickly through the lines.
By contrast, Darwin Nunez started centrally this time around, and Liverpool, with nobody dropping off the front, ended up hesitating with sideways passes that went around the United blockade.
This “tactical formation” graphic from the first half shows just how isolated Nunez (No 9) was from his team-mates.
Along with Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch lacking sharpness in the half-spaces, it meant Liverpool couldn’t pull United out of their shape.
Klopp’s formation changes flop
Not for the first time this season, Klopp tried to shake things up late on with a shift to a 4-2-4 formation. A double substitution left Gakpo and Luis Diaz out wide, Mohamed Salah and Nunez as strike partners and Trent Alexander-Arnold and Wataru Endo in midfield.
Unsurprisingly, that midfield pairing was too exposed, and in the period between Klopp’s two formation changes – the 62nd to the 78th minute – the match was suddenly entertaining. Man Utd found it easy to counter through the midfield gaps, stretching the game significantly.
Worried by the number of chances United were creating - they had three shots in that 17-minute window, half of their total of six - Klopp shut it down again, reverting to a 4-3-3 with Harvey Elliott in central midfield and Curtis Jones on the left flank.
It did not work and the game somewhat petered out, a mixture of tactical errors, poor form from the majority of Liverpool players and United’s solid defensive shape having combined to give us a forgettable 90 minutes.
