Midfield highlights gulf in class between rivals Liverpool and Manchester United

Liverpool vs. Manchester United is supposed to be one of the Premier League’s defining fixtures, but a look at the strength of their midfield units shows how far apart the sides are this season.

It is English soccer’s defining rivalry, but defining what the contest between Liverpool and Manchester United actually means right now is difficult.

These are the country’s two most successful clubs. In terms of pedigree and the stature of both, this should be a fixture comparable to even the fiercest rivalries around the soccer world. In current terms, though, it is something of an irrelevancy.

Manchester United enter the weekend closer to the foot of the Premier League table (20 points) than they are to Liverpool at the top (27 points). This illustrates the gulf between the two clubs at the moment. While one has become the model club over the past few years, the other now offers a cautionary tale, proving what complacency and incompetence can do to a club, even one of such size and history.

Not for a generation, maybe two, has this contest been so heavily weighted in the favor of one side.

Liverpool have won 20 of their 21 Premier League fixtures so far this season and there’s no reason believe they won’t make it 21 from 22. And yet there would still be a certain symbolism to a Liverpool victory, exorcising another ghost of the past on their way to creating a new future as English champions.

There aren’t many, if any, United players who would currently get into the Liverpool side. This is perhaps exemplified best in midfield. In Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum, Jurgen Klopp has built a unit capable of controlling games and facilitating those further ahead of them. Man Utd’s midfield, on the other hand, is a wasteland.

Scott McTominay and Paul Pogba are top performers, but both will miss Sunday’s trip to Merseyside through injury. This means Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will have to cobble together a central midfielder, most likely from Fred, Andreas Pereira and one of Juan Mata or Nemanja Matic. One wonders if Solskjaer has been training his players in chasing shadows in practice this week.

Liverpool’s midfield doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Maybe it’s because the likes of Mohamed Salah, Virgil Van Dijk, Sadio Mane and Trent Alexander-Arnold draw the eye to other areas of the pitch, but Jurgen Klopp has built the perfect engine to drive his team. Fabinho, Henderson and Wijnaldum all know their role. The same can’t be said of their Man Utd counterparts.

Consider that Klopp also has Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Xherdan Shaqiri and Takumi Minamino to call upon and Liverpool’s supremacy is emphatically underlined. Their squad presents an image of what a holistic, joined up transfer strategy can achieve and why Manchester United are still being negligent in their approach.

Solskjaer’s side are the only Premier League team to take points off Liverpool this season, drawing 1-1 with the table-toppers back in October. United were able to stifle Klopp’s side, using the large playing surface at Old Trafford to get in behind the visitors with the pace of Daniel James, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford.

If Liverpool are to drop points for a second time this weekend it will be because of a mental block when it comes to games against Man Utd. Indeed, Klopp hasn’t always been able to work out the Old Trafford outfit, although his record against United is significantly better at Anfield, where Saturday’s fixture will be played.

This remains a compelling fixture with many different aspects to hold the attention. This weekend’s match is still the most eye-catching of the Premier League slate and will command an audience of millions, possibly even hundreds of millions around the world.

But, normally laden with narrative, this clash will only underline how the current narrative is of one team’s dominance over the other. Does that make for a true rivalry?