Lessons Learned as Liverpool Scrape Point In The Snow | OneFootball

It was cold and wet around Anfield yesterday and the Reds completed the hat-trick by making it pretty miserable inside the stadium too. It was easier to tell you who did get pass marks in this one as there’ll be many in Red who were fake when the final whistle eventually came. Maybe it was thinking it was won before it started, perhaps it was a glance at the league table. Whatever it was there wasn’t a lot to like. We look at the lessons learned from a 2-2 draw which could have been even worse at the end.

Some Things Aren’t Excusable

United played their best game of the season and had a plan that they stuck to, no doubts about that. But there’s no excuse in a game of this magnitude for Liverpool to be a) outfought and b) outworked. It’s inexcusable. Too often we’ve seen this five up the first half at home tactic and we’ll work it out in the second. It would always catch up to us eventually and you could see their first goal coming a mile off. The skipper was screaming at everyone, but getting little reaction back. This is what’ll hurt the most this week.

Trent’s Head On Mars

Wherever it was, the vice-captain’s mind seemed to be anywhere but Anfield, judging by this performance. United targeted him with Dalot and Fernandes specifically and he made them look world-class. He didn’t win a single duel in his 86 minutes on the pitch and the only sad thing was Conor Bradley’s fitness probably stopped him getting hooked earlier.

Photo: IMAGO

There is a title to be won and it needs to be established instantly what is going on with Trent. It may even benefit everyone if he just announces what he wants to do right now. Either way, what we saw yesterday was unacceptable. That clip where Virgil doesn’t even bother shouting at him anymore speaks volumes.

Mac and Virgil Deserve Credit

Amidst a sea of mediocrity, those were the two players that deserved real credit. The skipper will be disappointed not to bury his header at the end and he was deadly honest about the performance afterwards, like a real leader should be. Mac Allister continued his recent run of good form and won the most duels (8), completed the most dribbles (3) and made the most recoveries in the middle (6). He just couldn’t do it all himself and whilst Gravenberch wasn’t bad, he seemed better in the half-spaces more than anything. Salah and Gakpo got goals, but there wasn’t too much to write home about from those in red.