Manchester United produced one of the poorest performances seen at Old Trafford in the Premier League era and against their arch rivals, Liverpool when the two teams met over the weekend. The Red Devils were hammered 5-0 at home by the Merseyside giants to pile on more misery on manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Solskjaerand Manchester United came into the game against Liverpool on the back of a three-game winless run dating back to their late victory over hosts West Ham United last month. England player Jesse Lingard came off the bench to score the winner against the Hammers with a minute left on the clock. Lingard was on loan at West Ham United from Manchester United for the second half of last season and he came back to haunt the Hammers.
Since the West Ham game, Manchester United lost at home to Aston Villa, drawn with Merseyside giants Everton at home and lost to hosts Leicester City. The Leicester City game made it three games without a victory in the league and also preceded the Liverpool game.
Manchester United started well against Liverpool and they created the first chance of the game but Bruno Fernandescould not take it. Shortly afterwards, in-form Mohamed Salah went to the other end to provide the assist for fellow African star Naby Keita to score the opening goal of the game.
Liverpool took a fifth minute lead through the aforementioned Keita and it didn’t take long for Diogo Jota to double the lead off the assist from England right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold. In thirteen (13) minutes, Liverpool had established a two-goal lead as the Manchester United defence struggled to deal with the free-flowing Reds attack.
Salah has been in magnificent form this season and he added a brace in the last seven minutes to give Liverpool a 4-0 lead at the half-time interval. In Premier League terms,Manchester United had never been 4-0 down at the break until they met Salah and Liverpool at the weekend.
Egyptian international Salah then completed his treble five minutes after the restart to take the game further away from the Red Devils who had second half substitute Paul Pogba sent off for a dangerous challenge on Keita. With ten men, Manchester United were able to stem the tide of conceding goals to their visitors. In the end, a 12-minute hattrick from Salah either side of the interval was more than enough to lead Liverpool to their biggest win at Manchester United in the Premier League.