Beating Liverpool at their own game
Erik ten Hag got the better of Jürgen Klopp by taking a few leaves out of his book
FIVE ASIDES FA Cup quarter-final: United 4, Liverpool 3
United didn’t just beat Liverpool. They laid on a thrilling drama by beating Liverpool at their own game. They started with so much intensity that you wondered if Erik ten Hag had taken over as the dressing-room DJ and put on some heavy metal. They may have lost the first half (1-2), and the first half of extra time (0-1), but they won the second half (1-0) and finished so strongly that they aced the second half of extra time (2-0). They scored three minutes from the end of normal time, with Antony’s twist-and-shoot, and three minutes from the end of the whole epic saga, with Amad’s cool-headed clip onto the inside of the far post. They ran so hard that they wore Liverpool out. Not many teams have done that since the day in 2015 when Jürgen Klopp first darkened the door of an English dentist.
Ten Hag was not himself – in a good way. Again and again, he took a leaf out of the Klopp handbook. He made a big statement beforehand, saying United needed to ‘save our season’. He went out of his way to whip up the crowd, setting a tone that was picked up by Rapha Varane and Kobbie Mainoo. He showed faith in his young players, not turning to Sofyan Amrabat when Casemiro pulled up lame, but trusting Mainoo to be the sole pivot. He was brave, spurning Amrabat again after 80 minutes and replacing Mainoo with the more creative Christian Eriksen, whose delicious chip gave Marcus Rashford a big chance to win the match in the 94th minute. A man who often sends on only three subs used five, so, in another Klopp-ish development, the win was a triumph for the whole squad, not just the favoured few.
But the way the match was won was also the United way. There was youth – the winning goal was scored by a 21-year-old, Amad, and assisted by a teenager, Alejandro Garnacho. There were wingers – four at the same time for the last 40 minutes, with Amad and Antony joining Garnacho and Rashford. There was never-say-die and derring-do. There was high drama: not just the goals but the fact that Amad got a red card along with the winner. Never can Old Trafford have given a United sending-off such a rousing send-off. There was attack, attack, attack as the best form of defence – United ended up with just two recognised defenders in the XI (Diogo Dalot and Harry Maguire, both quite attack-minded). The other half of the back four comprised Bruno Fernandes and Antony, who was fuming when he was told to move to left-back for the last 15 minutes. A video shot by a fan showed him being calmed down by Rashford, who knows how it feels to play out of position.
Ten Hag also got it right with the players he didn't substitute. Dalot, the only defender to go the distance, never seems to run out of steam. Scott McTominay too has his own internal combustion engine. André Onana is becoming more authoritative by the week, both as a shot-stopper and an attack-starter. Rashford and Fernandes had been looking half-fit when we last saw them and Garnacho turned out to have been nursing a hamstring strain, but all three kept going for the full two hours – and kept on making things happen. Rashford scored for the third game in a row and served up two appetising chances for McTominay (who returned the favour when it really mattered). Garnacho had a big hand in United’s first and second goals as well as the winner. Fernandes did so well in the Franz Beckenbauer slot that you hope he’ll be put there again.
Ten Hag, who had no plan B against Man City, found one here. Can we still call it a plan when it largely consisted of chaos? We can if it works. Now he has to build on this moment. United are still unlikely to win the FA Cup, because they’ll probably have to beat City, which is an even taller order at Wembley. But Ten Hag and the other coaches need to make sure that the thing he talked about afterwards – ‘the spirit, the mentality’ – shines out in all 11 or 12 of United’s remaining games. The international break has come at the right moment for their injury list, but the wrong one for their momentum. It has to be there from the start at Brentford on Easter Saturday. Even if that means putting on some heavy metal.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian, where he had the pleasure of live-blogging this match.