Where will this meeting of classic Premier League rivals be decided? We take a look at six key areas that could prove crucial when Liverpool host Manchester United on Sunday at Anfield.
Only weeks ago, few would have questioned that Liverpool will be overwhelming favourites to beat Manchester United when they meet at Anfield on Sunday.
The defending Premier League champions were riding high after five wins from five, while United had won two, lost two and drawn one. They were already eight points behind their old rivals.
However, Arne Slot’s men then lost at Crystal Palace and Chelsea either side of a Champions League defeat at Galatasaray, losing top spot in the league to Arsenal and severely lessening the aura around them.
All of those losses were on the road, though, so they’ll be pleased to return to Anfield this weekend. And while Ruben Amorim’s side come into this game off the back of a win and a clean sheet against Sunderland, they are winless in their last eight Premier League away games (D2 L6). They last went longer without a league win on the road in September 1989 under Alex Ferguson (11).
Liverpool are still heavy favourites with the Opta supercomputer, but just where will this game be won and lost? We have looked at six key subplots to the contest that could determine who comes away with the points.
Is This the Game for Salah to Come Alive?
Mohamed Salah hasn’t been himself this season. Perhaps it’s a sign of decline due to his age. Perhaps it’s because he no longer has Trent Alexander-Arnold fizzing perfect balls in behind for him. There’s also every chance he’s quite understandably been seriously affected by the sudden and tragic loss of friend and teammate Diogo Joto over the summer.
Explaining Salah’s Struggles
Premier LeagueWhy Liverpool Are Struggling to Get the Best Out of Mohamed Salah
1 week ago David SegarWhatever the reason or reasons for his below-par performances, most of us would agree that it would be no surprise to see Salah back to his best before long. It was only last season he broke the Premier League record for goal involvements in a 38-game Premier League season.
What better occasion and what better opponent, then, for the Egyptian to rediscover his goalscoring touch, than Sunday’s game against Manchester United?
Salah has more goals (13) and more goal involvements (19) against United than any other player in Premier League history. If he is to get one more before he leaves England, he’ll become only the sixth player to manage 20+ goal involvements against a single opponent in the history of the competition.
United have conceded nine goals in four away games in all competitions this season. In the Premier League, only Burnley and West Ham have allowed their opponents more non-penalty expected goals than them (10.1 xG). The average xG value of each shot they have faced is higher (0.16 xG) than any other team in the division.
So, Salah loves playing United, who concede goals, give up lots of chances, and give up good chances, too. It’s written in the stars, isn’t it?
Can United Find Their Shooting Boots?
Man Utd do concede chances, but Amorim’s men are also creating chances this season.
They have attempted more shots than any other team in the Premier League after seven games in 2025-26 (110), and have the highest expected goals (xG) total (14.1).
However, United have only scored nine goals, an underperformance of 5.06 xG, the worst in Europe’s top five leagues. They have also benefitted from two own goals, which do not carry an xG value, so technically they are underperforming with their shots by 7.06 xG.
That follows on from last season, when their underperformance of 9.4 (44 goals from 53.4 xG) was the second highest in the division.
They have scored in each of their last three Premier League games, though, while the lowest xG they have amassed in a single game this season has been 1.52 (vs both Arsenal and Manchester City).
You would therefore fancy they will get chances at Anfield, especially against a Liverpool side that have looked fairly open at the back this season.
They appeared especially vulnerable on home soil in their first game against Bournemouth, while they largely had goalkeepers Alisson and Giorgi Mamardashvili to thank for not conceding more than they did in recent defeats to Palace, Galatasaray and Chelsea.
That said, only three teams in the Premier League have faced fewer shots them them (71), while only four have a lower xG against than their 7.9. Maybe Liverpool’s defence isn’t as wobbly as some have said, but the uncertainty about who will play right-back (more on that to come), the up-and-down form of Ibrahima Konaté, having a new left-back still settling in Milos Kerkez and being without the injured Alisson in goal will all give the visitors hope they can get at the champions.
Many will expect the hosts to dominate much of the game, but should United carve out chances as they have been recently, their success will inevitably be dependent on better finishing than we have seen from them so far.
Stay Until the End!
Late goals and late winners have been a prominent feature of the Premier League in 2025-26. In 70 games so far, there have been 24 goals scored in the 90th minute or later, and 10 of those have been match-winners. Both are being scored at a higher rate than any other season in Premier League history.
Late, Late Shows
Premier LeagueWhy Are Premier League 90th-Minute Winners at an All-Time High?
4 days ago Ali TweedaleOf those 90th-minute goals, seven – or 25% – have come in games involving Liverpool or United. Of the 90th-minute winners, five – or 50% – have involved one of these teams. Liverpool have also scored winners in the 83rd and 88th minutes.
Without 90th-minute goals, Liverpool would have drawn four matches this season rather than none, while United would drop down to 13th in the table. These teams know better than anyone else just how important it is to keep playing until the final whistle, and how costly a late, tired lapse of concentration can prove.
Liverpool and United have rarely been so far apart in their respective outlooks. It’s not common for them to be separated by eight positions in the table, and rarer still that one would have just won the league while the other finished as low as 15th. There might be good reason to expect Liverpool, far the superior of the two sides right now, to walk this game. They battered their rivals 7-0 in this fixture in 2023 and 4-0 a year earlier, and have the attacking quality to inflict that kind of damage on United again.
But the fact that both teams have seen winners scored late on so frequently this season shows something else: how tight their matches have been going into the final minutes. Maybe this weekend’s game is set up to be a tight affair, as it was in the last two seasons when they drew at Anfield (0-0 in 2023-24 and 2-2 in 2024-25).
Liverpool haven’t been playing at their full potential this season. (They’ve been relying on lots of late goals, remember!) And while United are down in 10th, they have shown a few shoots of life that should give cause for hope against the reigning champions and their fiercest rivals. They have it in them to keep this one in the balance until late on.
In other words, if you’re watching this game, watch until the very end. Something major might happen late in the day.
Can Wirtz Make Use of Midfield Space?
There were huge expectations when Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for a nine-figure fee over the summer.
The German has shown flashes of his undoubted ability, but has not exactly had a fast start to life in England. Wirtz is yet to record a goal or assist in seven Premier League appearances, despite having nine shots and creating 11 chances – his 20 combined shots and chances created are the most of any player yet to score or assist in the competition this season.
His only goal involvement in 10 games in all competitions came in the Community Shield against Crystal Palace when he assisted fellow debutant Hugo Ekitiké.
One of the problems the 22-year-old has faced has been getting used to the pace of the Premier League and having less time on the ball or room to work in. However, against a Manchester United side that so often leaves chasms of space down the middle, Wirtz could finally have the conditions to thrive.
With a first-choice midfield pair of Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes, Amorim has plenty of experience and goal threat, but United rarely look solid in the middle out of possession when they are paired together. The Brazilian’s legs aren’t what they used to be, while Fernandes is always keen to get forward and be on the front foot, often leaving Casemiro to cover a lot of ground by himself.
Also, as you can see from the zones of control graphic below, United have not been ‘controlling’ possession down the right side of their own half this season, which is an area Wirtz often likes to drift out to. Should they all start, how the German, Cody Gakpo and Kerkez link up could go some way to deciding how much joy Liverpool have on Sunday.
It is an area Liverpool have controlled in the main this season, too.
Former Reds boss Jürgen Klopp recently said of Wirtz to German outlet n-tv: “His quality is so outstanding. The discussions are a bit exaggerated.
“[Wirtz is] a once-in-a-century talent, and at some point he’ll show that in every game again, just as he did at Leverkusen.”
Wirtz has also created the most chances of any Premier League player in all competitions this season (22), so it is surely just a matter of time before he makes an impact, and Sunday would be the perfect time to start.
Can United Exploit Liverpool’s Weak Right?
When Liverpool’s right-back was Trent Alexander-Arnold, there was a widely held view that he let the team down too often defensively. Too frequently, he was out of position, or an opponent went past him too easily, rendering his side vulnerable down his side of the pitch.
The one upside, then, to Alexander-Arnold leaving and Liverpool losing out on the immense creative contributions he made with the ball was that they could upgrade from a defensive point of view. So far, however, that hasn’t proved to be the case.
They might have upgraded with Jeremie Frimpong, but it’s too early to judge him properly. His debut Premier League season is only seven games old and he’s missed a handful of them already with a hamstring injury. He could one day be the perfect right-back.
But even if Frimpong is fit enough to face United, he isn’t yet up to speed in the Premier League, and his performances to date along with those of the Conor Bradley and Dominik Szoboszlai – the others who have played at right-back this season – don’t make it look much like any of Liverpool’s options will be any more reliable defensively than Alexander-Arnold.
In Premier League games this season, 43.5% of the chances Liverpool’s opponents have created have come down their right flank, compared to just 28.2% on the opposite flank. There’s still a weakness there that opponents are looking to exploit.
Perhaps these numbers are understandable. Liverpool are going through a period of transition after so many changes over the summer, and they have had no consistency in the right-back position of late
But excusable or not, there is a chink in Liverpool’s armour there for United to make the most of.
Will Strikers Justify Enormous Fees?
Both clubs spent big in the summer, including on central strikers. Hugo Ekitiké started well for Liverpool, but both Alexander Isak and Benjamin Sesko had slow starts for various reasons.
They are among the new striker signings we analysed and graded on their starts to the campaign.
Ekitiké has five goals and an assist in 10 games (seven starts) from 5.22 xG. No other player from either team has more than three goals. A silly red card in the EFL Cup against Southampton aside, the France international has impressed in his first few months at Anfield.
Isak’s signing was a protracted one to say the least, which played a role in what has been an underwhelming beginning on Merseyside. The Swede’s pre-season was almost entirely disrupted as he sought a move away from Newcastle United, and though he has played six times for his new team, Isak has amassed just 312 minutes on the pitch as he tries to find full fitness. He has just one goal and one assist so far.
Sesko also had a turbulent summer, unsure if he was joining Arsenal, Newcastle or Man Utd, ultimately ending up at Old Trafford. The big Slovenian didn’t score in any of his first six appearances for United, though only three were starts, but he has found the net in each of his last two games, against Brentford and Sunderland. Sesko’s two goals from eight games (five starts) have come from 2.3 xG.
There is a question mark as to whether Ekitiké or Isak will start for the hosts on Sunday, while the assumption is Sesko will for the visitors. On such an occasion, the stage is set for one of them to be the match-winner and give their debut season a real boost.
Ekitiké has never played against United before, while Isak has scored just once in eight games against the Red Devils in his career, though that goal did come last season in Newcastle’s 2-0 win at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
Sesko has played just one competitive fixture against Liverpool, in the Champions League with RB Leipzig last season, but didn’t find the net in a 1-0 defeat.
With an estimated combined transfer value of around £280 million, you would hope at least one of them will step up when these two huge clubs meet on Sunday.
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