Where will this
meeting of classic Premier
League rivals be decided? We take a look at six key areas that
could prove crucial when Liverpool host Manchester United on Sunday
at Anfield.
Only weeks ago, few would have questioned that Liverpool
will be overwhelming favourites to beat Manchester
United when they meet at Anfield on Sunday.
The defending Premier League champions were riding high after
five wins from five, while United had won two, lost two and drawn
one. They were already eight points behind their old rivals.
However, Arne Slot’s men then lost at Crystal Palace and Chelsea
either side of a Champions League defeat at Galatasaray, losing top
spot in the league to Arsenal and severely lessening the aura
around them.
All of those losses were on the road, though, so they’ll be
pleased to return to Anfield this weekend. And while Ruben Amorim’s
side come into this game off the back of a win and a clean sheet
against Sunderland, they are winless in their last eight Premier
League away games (D2 L6). They last went longer without a league
win on the road in September 1989 under Alex Ferguson (11).
Liverpool are still heavy favourites with the Opta
supercomputer, but just where will this game be won and lost? We
have looked at six key subplots to the contest that could determine
who comes away with the points.
Is This
the Game for Salah to Come Alive?
Mohamed
Salah hasn’t been himself this season. Perhaps it’s a sign of
decline due to his age. Perhaps it’s because he no longer has Trent
Alexander-Arnold fizzing perfect balls in behind for him. There’s
also every chance he’s quite understandably been seriously affected
by the sudden and tragic loss of friend and teammate Diogo Joto
over the summer.
Explaining Salah’s Struggles
Whatever the reason or reasons for his below-par performances,
most of us would agree that it would be no surprise to see Salah
back to his best before long. It was only last season he broke the
Premier League record for goal involvements in a 38-game Premier
League season.
What better occasion and what better opponent, then, for the
Egyptian to rediscover his goalscoring touch, than Sunday’s game
against Manchester United?
Salah has more goals (13) and more goal involvements (19)
against United than any other player in Premier League history. If
he is to get one more before he leaves England, he’ll become only
the sixth player to manage 20+ goal involvements against a single
opponent in the history of the competition.
United have conceded nine goals in four away games in all
competitions this season. In the Premier League, only Burnley and
West Ham have allowed their opponents more non-penalty expected
goals than them (10.1 xG). The average xG value of each shot they
have faced is higher (0.16 xG) than any other team in the
division.
So, Salah loves playing United, who
concede goals, give up lots of chances, and give up good chances,
too. It’s written in the stars, isn’t it?
Can United Find Their Shooting
Boots?
Man Utd do concede chances, but Amorim’s men are also creating
chances this season.
They have attempted more shots than any other team in the
Premier League after seven games in 2025-26 (110), and have the
highest expected goals (xG) total (14.1).
However, United have only scored nine goals, an underperformance
of 5.06 xG, the worst in Europe’s top five leagues. They have also
benefitted from two own goals, which do not carry an xG value, so
technically they are underperforming with their shots by 7.06
xG.
That follows on from last season, when their underperformance of
9.4 (44 goals from 53.4 xG) was the second highest in the
division.
They have scored in each of their last three Premier League
games, though, while the lowest xG they have amassed in a single
game this season has been 1.52 (vs both Arsenal and Manchester
City).
You would therefore fancy they will get chances at Anfield,
especially against a Liverpool side that have looked fairly open at
the back this season.
They appeared especially vulnerable on home soil in their first
game against Bournemouth, while they largely had goalkeepers
Alisson
and
Giorgi Mamardashvili to thank for not conceding more than they
did in recent defeats to Palace, Galatasaray and Chelsea.
That said, only three teams in the Premier League have faced
fewer shots them them (71), while only four have a lower xG against
than their 7.9. Maybe Liverpool’s defence isn’t as wobbly as some
have said, but the uncertainty about who will play right-back (more
on that to come), the up-and-down form of Ibrahima
Konaté, having a new left-back still settling in Milos
Kerkez and being without the injured Alisson in goal will all
give the visitors hope they can get at the champions.
Many will expect the hosts to dominate much of the game, but
should United carve out chances as they have been recently, their
success will inevitably be dependent on better finishing than we
have seen from them so far.
Stay
Until the End!
Late goals and late winners have been a prominent feature of the
Premier League in 2025-26. In 70 games so far, there have been 24
goals scored in the 90th minute or later, and 10 of those have been
match-winners. Both are being scored at a higher rate than any
other season in Premier League history.
Late, Late Shows
Of those 90th-minute goals, seven – or 25% – have come in games
involving Liverpool or United. Of the 90th-minute winners, five –
or 50% – have involved one of these teams. Liverpool have also
scored winners in the 83rd and 88th minutes.
Without 90th-minute goals, Liverpool would have drawn four
matches this season rather than none, while United would drop down
to 13th in the table. These teams know better than anyone else just
how important it is to keep playing until the final whistle, and
how costly a late, tired lapse of concentration can prove.
Liverpool and United have rarely been so far apart in their
respective outlooks. It’s not common for them to be separated by
eight positions in the table, and rarer still that one would have
just won the league while the other finished as low as 15th. There
might be good reason to expect Liverpool, far the superior of the
two sides right now, to walk this game. They battered their rivals
7-0 in this fixture in 2023 and 4-0 a year earlier, and have the
attacking quality to inflict that kind of damage on United
again.
But the fact that both teams have seen winners scored late on so
frequently this season shows something else: how tight their
matches have been going into the final minutes. Maybe this
weekend’s game is set up to be a tight affair, as it was in the
last two seasons when they drew at Anfield (0-0 in 2023-24 and 2-2
in 2024-25).
Liverpool haven’t been playing at their full potential this
season. (They’ve been relying on lots of late goals, remember!) And
while United are down in 10th, they have shown a few shoots of life
that should give cause for hope against the reigning champions and
their fiercest rivals. They have it in them to keep this one in the
balance until late on.
In other words, if you’re watching this game, watch until the
very end. Something major might happen late in the day.
Can
Wirtz Make Use of Midfield Space?
There were huge expectations when Liverpool signed Florian
Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for a nine-figure fee over the
summer.
The German has shown flashes of his undoubted ability, but has
not exactly had a fast start to life in England. Wirtz is yet to
record a goal or assist in seven Premier League appearances,
despite having nine shots and creating 11 chances – his 20 combined
shots and chances created are the most of any player yet to score
or assist in the competition this season.
His only goal involvement in 10 games in all competitions came
in the Community Shield against Crystal Palace when he assisted
fellow debutant Hugo
Ekitiké.
One of the problems the 22-year-old has faced has been getting
used to the pace of the Premier League and having less time on the
ball or room to work in. However, against a Manchester United side
that so often leaves chasms of space down the middle, Wirtz could
finally have the conditions to thrive.
With a first-choice midfield pair of Casemiro
and Bruno
Fernandes, Amorim has plenty of experience and goal threat, but
United rarely look solid in the middle out of possession when they
are paired together. The Brazilian’s legs aren’t what they used to
be, while Fernandes is always keen to get forward and be on the
front foot, often leaving Casemiro to cover a lot of ground by
himself.
Also, as you can see from the zones of control graphic below,
United have not been ‘controlling’ possession down the right side
of their own half this season, which is an area Wirtz often likes
to drift out to. Should they all start, how the German, Cody
Gakpo and Kerkez link up could go some way to deciding how much
joy Liverpool have on Sunday.
It is an area Liverpool have controlled in the main this season,
too.
Former Reds boss Jürgen Klopp recently said of Wirtz to
German outlet n-tv: “His quality is so outstanding. The
discussions are a bit exaggerated.
“[Wirtz is] a once-in-a-century talent, and at some point he’ll
show that in every game again, just as he did at Leverkusen.”
Wirtz has also created the most chances of any Premier League
player in all competitions this season (22), so it is surely just a
matter of time before he makes an impact, and Sunday would be the
perfect time to start.
Can
United Exploit Liverpool’s Weak Right?
When Liverpool’s right-back was Trent Alexander-Arnold, there
was a widely held view that he let the team down too often
defensively. Too frequently, he was out of position, or an opponent
went past him too easily, rendering his side vulnerable down his
side of the pitch.
The one upside, then, to Alexander-Arnold leaving and Liverpool
losing out on the immense creative contributions he made with the
ball was that they could upgrade from a defensive point of view. So
far, however, that hasn’t proved to be the case.
They might have upgraded with
Jeremie Frimpong, but it’s too early to judge him properly. His
debut Premier League season is only seven games old and he’s missed
a handful of them already with a hamstring injury. He could one day
be the perfect right-back.
But even if Frimpong is fit enough to face United, he isn’t yet
up to speed in the Premier League, and his performances to date
along with those of the Conor
Bradley and
Dominik Szoboszlai – the others who have played at right-back
this season – don’t make it look much like any of Liverpool’s
options will be any more reliable defensively than
Alexander-Arnold.
In Premier League games this season, 43.5% of the chances
Liverpool’s opponents have created have come down their right
flank, compared to just 28.2% on the opposite flank. There’s still
a weakness there that opponents are looking to exploit.
Perhaps these numbers are understandable. Liverpool are going
through a period of transition after so many changes over the
summer, and they have had no consistency in the right-back position
of late
But excusable or not, there is a chink in Liverpool’s armour
there for United to make the most of.
Will
Strikers Justify Enormous Fees?
Both clubs spent big in the summer, including on central
strikers. Hugo Ekitiké started well for Liverpool, but both
Alexander Isak and Benjamin
Sesko had slow starts for various reasons.
They are among the new striker signings we analysed and graded on
their starts to the campaign.
Ekitiké has five goals and an assist in 10 games (seven starts)
from 5.22 xG. No other player from either team has more than three
goals. A silly red card in the EFL Cup against Southampton aside,
the France international has impressed in his first few months at
Anfield.
Isak’s signing was a protracted one to say the least, which
played a role in what has been an underwhelming beginning on
Merseyside. The Swede’s pre-season was almost entirely disrupted as
he sought a move away from Newcastle United, and though he has
played six times for his new team, Isak has amassed just 312
minutes on the pitch as he tries to find full fitness. He has just
one goal and one assist so far.
Sesko also had a turbulent summer, unsure if he was joining
Arsenal, Newcastle or Man Utd, ultimately ending up at Old
Trafford. The big Slovenian didn’t score in any of his first six
appearances for United, though only three were starts, but he has
found the net in each of his last two games, against Brentford and
Sunderland. Sesko’s two goals from eight games (five starts) have
come from 2.3 xG.
There is a question mark as to whether Ekitiké or Isak will
start for the hosts on Sunday, while the assumption is Sesko will
for the visitors. On such an occasion, the stage is set for one of
them to be the match-winner and give their debut season a real
boost.
Ekitiké has never played against United before, while Isak has
scored just once in eight games against the Red Devils in his
career, though that goal did come last season in Newcastle’s 2-0
win at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
Sesko has played just one competitive fixture against Liverpool,
in the Champions League with RB Leipzig last season, but didn’t
find the net in a 1-0 defeat.
With an estimated combined transfer value of around £280
million, you would hope at least one of them will step up when
these two huge clubs meet on Sunday.
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