Liverpool collapse at Old Trafford as Van Dijk, Salah and Isak suffer nightmare in shock Manchester United win
Jamie Carragher called Virgil van Dijk a “baby,” Mohamed Salah was more like a toddler, and Alexander Isak didn’t seem worth £25 million, much less £125 million.
In their loss to Manchester United, the three members of Liverpool were terrible.
This season, the storyline surrounding Liverpool’s defensive problems has been that Van Dijk’s skill cannot overshadow Ibrahima Konate’s decline, which has been too severe due to a contract dispute and Real Madrid’s interest that is now waning as a result of his fall.
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However, following an incredible play sequence in the first minute at Anfield that saw Manchester United take the lead, we were compelled to speculate that Konate’s slump and Liverpool’s general unhappiness may be partially caused by their skipper not quite being “at it” this season.
Either that or Van Dijk’s body and mind hadn’t yet woken up—and never really did—to a match against Liverpool’s most formidable opponents, where a loss would end any concerns about their capacity to compete with Arsenal for the championship. Neither is good for him.
In less than ten seconds at the beginning of this game, he made three mistakes—four if you include the head injury he caused to Alexis Mac Allister—and, as Gary Neville stated on commentary, he spent the remainder of it “not knowing whether to stick or twist.”
He goes games, weeks, months, and even seemingly entire seasons without making mistakes.
Van Dijk dangled a leg in an almost laughably feeble attempt to stop Bruno Fernandes’ pass to Amad Diallo after clattering into the back of Bryan Mbeumo while failing to deal with a long ball and smacking Mac Allister with an elbow in the process. Mbeumo then sprinted off his back to score.
He has jogged back into position thousands of times, but usually in a way that says, “I’m far better than you so don’t need to break a sweat.”
This is in contrast to the carelessness we witnessed here, which is made worse by the fact that he pointed Mbeumo out to Konate without actually marking him.
Alongside him, Milos Kerkez was experiencing yet another nightmare.
Given their obvious difficulties handling the 3-4-3 formation today, we also need to wonder what Arne Slot has done since Liverpool’s 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace to coach them to play against it.
Van Dijk was constantly pulled out of position and appeared truly uneasy because he had no real No. 9 to play against.
Whether he was being pulled into midfield or out wide being faced up by Mbeumo, those moments caused his mind to become so confused that by halftime he was losing a physical battle to Matheus Cunha.
He paired his newly discovered defensive incompetence with the all too familiar Van Dijk habit of blaming others for his own errors when he sliced a cross into Kerkez’s face before yelling at the full-back for not speaking to him.
Van Dijk’s aura momentarily returned to help Liverpool equalise with a brilliant tackle that stopped a United counterattack, but he was then spotted marking nobody as Harry Maguire scored the Red Devils’ winning goal, with Matthijs de Ligt also clear at the back post.
“Van Dijk has been taking care of a baby in Konate for the majority of the season; now it’s the other way around,” Carragher stated during analysis.
However, Liverpool had two more extremely eager, well-respected patsies to divert attention from the completely shaken captain, aside from his much-maligned centre-back as a scapegoat.
After being brilliantly passed through by Konate, Alexander Isak squandered a fantastic opportunity, but his shot went straight to Senne Lammens.
On another occasion, he could have put Mohamed Salah in a good position, but he pulled another one wide.
Slot stated this week that Isak has already finished his postponed preseason, so this is just poor play on the part of the £125 million player.
Salah, on the other hand, was as bad as we have ever seen him for Liverpool against the team he loves playing against the most.
His worst moment was when he had a great opportunity to make it 17 goals in 18 games against United, but he kicked the ball with the wrong part of his boot, lining up the effort at the back post like a toddler.
The fact that Slot took so long to see that Salah was becoming a liability for Liverpool, both in attack and defence, was more surprising than the fact that Salah was substituted for Jeremie Frimpong in the 85th minute of the game’s pursuit.
Although the visitors contributed to the mini-crisis turning into a full-fledged one, Liverpool is primarily responsible for the upgrade.
This comes after United won at Anfield for the first time in ten years, for which Ruben Amorim and his team undoubtedly deserve a great deal of credit (you can read about this in 16 Conclusions later).
We are grateful to Slot for treating the final thirty minutes or more as if they were the last, to Salah and Van Dijk, two Liverpool stalwarts, for letting go when they needed to, and to the summer acquisition who was meant to elevate this outstanding team rather than bring about this terrible decline.
