In 2022/23, Liverpool followed up a defeat at Old Trafford by smashing Bournemouth 9-0. Later that season, they beat Manchester United 7-0 at Anfield, then went and lost 1-0 away to Bournemouth. And there you have the last two seasons of Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp in a nutshell.
As overwhelmingly commanding as their three-goal win at Old Trafford was, it was a different kind of Liverpool performance than we have been used to seeing from them. Along with the even more extreme chaos nexus Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz has typified the Liverpool of the past two years: capable of being scintillatingly exciting, but also prone to showing a lack of ruthlessness at the end of his best work.
This season, that has changed – for Liverpool and Diaz alike.
We wrote towards the end of last season about how those kinds of holes in Liverpool’s game were all lining up too often for them to have possibly sustained that title challenge, and how the big task facing Arne Slot was always to get this side performing more consistently. That might mean removing a bit of the balls-to-the-wall excitement from their game, but it could also make their dips less extreme.
It’s early days to be drawing definitive conclusions, but so far, Diaz and Liverpool lived up to that – and did so again here. Contrary to Klopp’s side at its most Metallica, they were able to turn the game to their advantage not by turning up the volume, but by turning it down.
The frenetic pace of the first 15 minutes included a disallowed goal for Liverpool, but also saw Marcus Rashford getting in behind Trent Alexander-Arnold more than the Reds would have been comfortable with. Had Ibrahima Konate not been so excellent with his cover work, there would have been yet more opportunities for United to take advantage of.
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When the game settled down, Liverpool were happy to let it do so rather than rush into forcing the issue. If there’s one thing we know about Manchester United, particularly with the hapless Casemiro in the side, it is that they will slip up eventually; Liverpool’s plan was all about applying just enough pressure to make that happen and then being ready to exploit it.
Ryan Gravenberch’s most dynamic running was reserved for those moments, and Liverpool were more intelligent in their final execution than we have seen them in a lot of games in the final days of Klopp, when the aim often seemed to be to make as much chaos as possible and hope their superior quality put them on the winning side.
Under previous iterations of Klopp’s side, that worked, because they really were good enough for it to do so. Thumping wins against Manchester United were delivered under Klopp with gleeful regularity.
But this version of the Liverpool squad has yearned for a bit more control; some artists do their best work when they are given more restrictions to work within, rather than more freedom.
That’s what we got here. Composed, rather than rushed, Liverpool were calmly aware that they could make their constant numerical advantage inside the Manchester United box count by playing the right pass and applying the right finish.
They’re not all the way there yet, as that too-open first 15 minutes and a final 15 in which they showed a bit of complacency in the United box made clear. But there are signs of moving in a direction that Neil Warnock once famously espoused: enjoy it, but enjoy it by being disciplined.
Famous last words, but that feels so much more sustainable for them. If the results keep coming, the touch of unpredictable excitement they have lost will be a more than worthwhile trade-off for them.
