Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopps dressing room speech exposes bigger worry at Man Utd
In pictures: Watford v Man Utd
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Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp’s demand of his players is exactly what Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lacked at Manchester United. The Reds responded to a poor run of form by comfortably beating Arsenal 4-0 at Anfield, while Solskjaer’s fate was finally sealed following an embarrassing 4-1 defeat by Watford.
Sadio Mane handed Klopp’s side the lead against the Gunners. Second half goals by Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Takumi Minamino sealed a big win and ended Arsenal’s six-match unbeaten run.
Meanwhile, Solskjaer was sacked after suffering yet another hammering.
The Norwegian had clung onto his job despite a 5-0 battering by Liverpool and Manchester City’s routine 2-0 success at Old Trafford in recent weeks.
But the Red Devils’ disastrous performance at Watford on Saturday prompted Solskjaer’s departure a little under 24 hours later.
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Josh King, Ismaila Sarr, Joao Pedro and Emmanuel Dennis all scored on a dismal day for United. Donny van de Beek, who endured a frustrating time under Solskjaer, aptly scored the final goal of the 48-year-old’s reign.
Defender Harry Maguire was sent off midway through the second half.
And a revelation about Liverpool boss Klopp’s message to his stars proves what Solskjaer lacked to turn around his own side’s form.
According to the Liverpool Echo, the German demanded ‘greater aggression’ from his players after they were beaten by West Ham prior to the international break. Liverpool conceded three sloppy goals in that 3-2 reverse.
It is a sizeable contrast to that of United, who did not have the resilience to overturn a poor period of form.
Trent Alexander-Arnold has explained how Liverpool spent the days after the international break fixing the problems that led to the loss at West Ham.
“It has been playing on our minds and we had time to address it after we came back from internationals and evaluate where it went wrong and address it,” Alexander-Arnold said.
“It was important to get that bounce back, retaliate from that and use it as motivation to go again and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We used it to our advantage, to be honest.
“Everyone was unhappy with it. We needed to do better. It was tough to take but we know as a team what went wrong, we could have done better and we made sure it didn’t happen again on Saturday.”
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He added: “Two set-pieces are never good and a counter-attack (against West Ham) but our pressing was very good (against Arsenal).
“We didn’t really win it too much in the first half but we still pressed and in the second half was probably our best pressing that we’ve had this season, it was back to what we do.
“We put them under immense pressure and won the ball back and we were able to punish them with Diogo’s goal. it was an outstanding second half, especially in the first 20 minutes of that second half.”
Whoever replaces Solskjaer at United must ensure that they put across similar messages to the one that Klopp gives to his players. Only then will the Old Trafford outfit be able to challenge Liverpool at the top of the Premier League.
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