Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP)
Liverpool will not match the record 18 consecutive victories in the Manchester City league, but the Reds have snapped up to take a 1-1 point against United, who regained some values on Sunday for the 9th day of Premier League. League.
The incredible series of success will stop at 17, including 8 early this season, a draw, which still leaves a nice advantage of 6 points on the Citizens in the standings.
For the Red Devils, this rather logical draw on the whole game is very encouraging, even if mathematically, the benefits are meager. With 10 units, they are still 13th in the standings, with 2 points ahead of Newcastle, the first team in the red zone.
ManU had been left without idea and without panache in Newcastle a fortnight ago, an evening of sadly deserved defeat (1-0).
Without being brilliant, the Red Devils were the opposite of all this Sunday against Liverpool, with a clear game plan and commitment to resell.
To stop the Reds' unbelievable winning machine, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer opted for a 3-5-2 that gave his team some defensive strength and density, despite Axel Tuanzebe's last-minute strike, injured at the warm-up and replaced by the Argentine Marcos Rojo.
The Norwegian had notably placed the Portuguese Andreas Pereira in the Fabinho zone to try to counteract the influence of the Brazilian on the opposing game.
A paying tactic in the first period mastered by his players against a private Liverpool Mohamed Salah, insufficiently recovered from an injury to ankle against Leicester before the international break, and whose debut match is not the strong this season .
- Lallana savior -
And as Manchester there is not totally devoid of talent, a magnificent call-cons-call from Marcus Rashford to stand out and receive a surgical center Daniel James had offered the Mancunians a deserved advantage (1-0, 36), despite a small fault on Divock Origi at the start of the action.
Undoubtedly shaken by Klopp in the locker room, defending vice-champions have created very few opportunities, despite tactical substitutions and reorganizations - a 4-2-3-1 break after the break with Origi in the lead and Firmino in support, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's entry in place of Origi to pass in 4-4-2 at the hour of play - ordered by the German coach.
Two low-level strikes by Georginio Wijnaldum (13th) and Roberto Firmino (34th) on the only "liverpoolesque" of the match, brought the only interventions of a David De Gea finally holder in the cages.
The VAR also dropped a goal to Sadio Mané who had touched the ball with his hand just before the break.
And it was almost when it was believed least that the Reds finally found the fault, 5 minutes from the end, thanks to an unlikely savior, Adam Lallana.
The English offensive midfielder was at the right moment to push into the goal a relatively small center that the Mancunian defense did not manage to clear to give the point of perseverance to his team (1-1, 85th).
Liverpool, however, will have to meditate on all these average benefits of the last weeks that his mental strength will not always be enough to mask.
On Wednesday against Genk in the Champions League, it would be good to show some of the brilliance that made him the winner of the C1.
© 2019 AFP