Manchester United was embarrassed by rivals, according to Stewart Robson. 1:04 It was the first time since September that the Reds had been top of the league. The Reds are currently in second place in the league, two points behind Manchester City, who have a game in hand. After just five minutes, Luis Diaz opened the scoring for the hosts and things went from bad to worse for United. The Reds took a 2-0 lead in the 26th minute thanks to a gorgeous flowing team move that incorporated 25 slick passes exchanged between 10 players and was finished by Mo Salah. The gulf in quality between these two great rivals was summed up by the fact that only one player was involved in the passage of play that led to the goal. The play is broken down by pass. Can Ten Hag turn Man United around? (E+)
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1. The move began with a defensive headed clearance from Victor Lindelof, one of three Manchester United centre-backs that interim coach Ralf Rangnick started this game with in the hope of repelling the attacking threat of the Reds. The ball infield was fed to Fabinho by Diaz, who moved out toward the left touchline.
2. Roughly 30 yards out from the United goal, Fabinho turned through 180 degrees with the ball under control and laid a short pass back to Thiago Alcantara.
3. Thiago quickly shuttled a first-time right-footed pass into a pocket of space he had spotted out on the left wing where Andy Robertson was waiting in anticipation.
4. Robertson took a couple of touches to steady himself and scanned the pitch for options before rolling the ball back to Thiago, who had followed his original pass in order to close the gap between the two players.
5. Thiago wriggled free of the press after Marcus Rashford hit him with the ball. He played a simple pass back to Alisson in order to relieve the pressure.
6-7. Alisson had set the tone for the match in the second minute, when he calmly evaded Bruno Fernandes with the ball at his feet inside his own penalty area. After taking a moment to assess his options further upfield, the goalkeeper got the ball moving again by exchanging a quick one-two with centre-back Joel Matip on the right-hand side of his penalty area.
There are 9. Matip moved the ball further out to the right flank with a short pass to Trent Alexander-Arnold after Allisson gave the ball back.
There was a meeting on 10-11-12. Alexander-Arnold opened his body and played a short pass up the touchline to find Fabinho. The Brazilian then rolled the ball over the halfway line and into the path of the Egyptian, who in turn stunned the ball into the possession of Jordan Henderson before peeling away and darting up the wing.
The weekend of 13-14. Henderson switched play entirely with a long, lofted ball back out to Robertson in the left-back position, rather than using the attacking run that he was expecting. The Scotland defender kept things simple with a neat pass to Thiago, who was nearby, after completing more than 90% of his passes in the final third.
15. Taking a few steps toward the centre spot, Thiago looked up and flung a lovely accurate pass out wide that dropped directly at the feet of Salah, who was still stationed wide on the right. Thiago put in a man-of-the-match performance against United after a difficult start to his time at the club. The Spain player who pulled the strings and took more touches of the ball than any other player on the pitch ended his 80 minute shift with a 95.6% pass completion rate.
16. After taking a couple of steps in from the touchline, the Egyptian took a backheeled pass from Thiago to Henderson, who had run past him.
There are 18-19-20-21. Unable to cross, Henderson exchanged a straightforward one-two with Alexander-Arnold before doing likewise with Fabinho and then completing his involvement in the move with a longer ball to find Matip in space as the play moved gradually back toward the halfway line.
22-23. Injecting fresh impetus into the move, Matip then surged forward several yards with the ball at his feet before making a interchange of passes with Diaz, who had drawn two defenders to him with his back to goal on the edge of the United box.
24. Matip drilled a low,angled pass into Sadio Mane, who had meandered into a pocket of space just outside the area, after the return ball from Diaz.
25. On the move and without so much as looking up, Mane curled a superb first-time ball around the corner and over the top of the United defensive line, looping his pass over the head of Harry Maguire and directly into the path of Salah, who had burst past Diogo Dalot and The Egyptian took a touch at pace and held off the defender before scoring.
It was the longest goalless streak for club and country since he went eight games without a goal in March. He has scored eight goals against United in his last four appearances, including his second and fourth goals.
In the history of the league, only two other pairs have scored in the same game 32 times, and that was the duo of Salah and Mane.
In January, the Reds beat both United and Spurs to get the services of Diaz from Porto, and he has fit right in with the rest of the squad. Here, the 25-year-old, the 25-year-old, the 25-year-old, and the 25-year-old all scored and assisted at least one goal.
As for United, they only had one shot on target, with half-time substitute Jadon Sancho&s tame effort from range early in the second half easily gathered up by Alisson.
As per the statistics, Fernandes was the most involved player. The only player in the starting XI that had more touches of the ball than the one who ended the evening with the highest successful completion rate was the one who had just 61 touches.
The current eight-game winning streak against United is the longest since 1927, the year before the roof was built on The Kop.
While the Reds are chasing a historic Quadruple, United are still in the running for a top-four finish. It will be a long time before they will be able to think about competing at the same level again.
Information was contributed to this report.
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