Liverpool Preview vs Manchester United: Reds looking to pile the pressure on struggling Mourinho

Liverpool face fierce rivals Manchester United on Sunday, looking to get their first home league victory against the Red Devils in over five years.

The Reds head into the weekend in good spirits having won their last five games; the most recent a 1-0 win over Napoli which saw Jurgen Klopp’s men progress to the Champions League knockout stage.

They have however been hit with an injury crisis, with Trent Alexander-Arnold (foot), Joe Gomez (ankle) and Joel Matip (shoulder) all expected to miss the game. James Milner is a slight doubt (cramp) as well.

As for Manchester United, they currently sit in sixth-place having won just two of their last six Premier League games, and are 16 points adrift of this weekend’s opponents.

Jose Mourinho has injury problems of his own with Diogo Dalot , Matteo Darmian, Anthony Martial, Scott McTominay, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw, Chris Smalling all set to face late fitness tests.

Prediction

For me, previous form means nothing in fixtures of this magnitude.

Both sides have will have the quality in their starting eleven to win this game, it’s just about who can handle the occasion best.

That being said, it’d be extremely naive not to look at how the two teams have fared so far this season.

We’ve seen across the campaign so far that Manchester United have their defensive vulnerabilities and against an attack as threatening as Liverpool’s, they cannot afford to make too many errors.

Especially considering how good form Mohamed Salah is in at the moment. The Egyptian has scored four goals from his last five shots in all competition.

We’ve seen in the past week that the Reds are now just as strong at the back as they are top having conceded just six goals this season, twenty less than the number Jose Mourinho’s side have shipped in (26).

I definitely don’t think it’ll be as easy a win as some Kopites are predicting but if Liverpool do show up, then they should have enough to win this one.

Liverpool 2-1 Manchester United

Alisson; Milner; Lovren, van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Keita; Salah, Firmino, Mane