It was a night when Man United held on tenaciously to frustrate Liverpool throughout the encounter at Anfield and earned themselves a respectable point on Merseyside.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has lauded the passion of his rivals and the way they defended during the goalless draw at Anfield on Sunday when Erik Ten Hag’s side were without the ball for large periods of time at Anfield and had to endure a lot of pressure from the hosts. Surprisingly, the United goalmouth was rarely threatened and United finally prevailed to secure a much-needed point.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk claimed United would be ‘buzzing’ after the match although manager Klopp was more down to earth in his appraisal of the match.
Klopp told Sky Sports: “The way United defended was obviously not perfectly organised or whatever but they showed a lot of passion and when a team defends with passion they fly into everything and you produce these moments. With all the intensity you put in if you then can calm down and see the free player who was definitely there then we would have scored.
“If you score it changes the dynamic of the game because they were not here to lose the game. They would have opened up a little and taken more risks and things change. But because of the situation they are in nothing changed, they threw everything in and in the end it stayed 0-0.”
One could easily have forgiven those who were wondering how many goals the Reds would have scored after last season’s demolition of United at Anfield. But as things turned out it looked like maintaining a clean sheet was clearly the intent for a backline that had been slam-dunked by Bournemouth just over a week ago.
The final match for United before Christmas will now take place next Saturday when they visit David Moyes’ West Ham.