My Liverpool vs Manchester United tickets for this Saturday arrived last week, a couple of weeks after getting the confirmation that I got them in the ballot once again. That does seem to be most years now but that’s what comes from applying for every away game for over ten years now. Anyway, as we’re all aware, this fixture is iconic, despite other rivalries from various other teams from the different title challenges over the years. Nothing though compares to this one. Not even Manchester City. Maybe amongst the younger generation of our fans, they see City as the big one because of their success, not for me, it’s always this one.
Onto my subject for this blog “Improvement required Mourinho”. The statement is not from the present, but it is from the same fixture in the middle of October last season. What you might be surprised about, is that it was not a criticism. I was looking forward, forward to now to be precise. There was a few little jabs at Mourinho on leaving the ground last year on the Monday night as I headed back to my coach back to Manchester. Fans not happy, only a few I might add, saying stuff like “we’re United, we can’t come to Anfield and play like that” and “we’re United, we should be playing to win, not parking the bus”. After our 0-0 draw.
Mourinho is clever though and you have to remember he was only about twelve games into his Manchester United managerial career, he was still finding his feet and his best team. The guy is a winner as we know, but he certainly does not like to lose and on that night at Anfield last season it was all about not losing! This weekend with his team now nearly built I suspect we’ll be going there to win. I got speaking to one of the lads on the coach after the game last year and I said something along the lines of “if we come back next season and play like that they you have every right to have a moan but not now”. Although to be fair if Zlatan had put away that wonderful headed chance he had in the second half then the performance would have been forgotten anyway, hah.
Roll on Saturday, I think my coach leaves 10.30am time, hopefully they’ll be serving beer in the ground even though it’s an early kick off. They never used to but they definitely were last season and possibly the year before too. Either way, I’ll take them not serving beer if we can come away with a victory and I’m confident we can. I’ll happily celebrate with beers when back in Manchester, saying that it’ll still be beers back in town whatever the result.
As for team news, apart from the current crop of long-term injuries the only new injury is our man of the match from our last league game against Crystal Palace. Yes, unfortunately Marouane Fellaini injured his knee ligaments on International duty for Belgium. Phil Jones should be back though after his knock on his knee. Red Army!!
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