Salah Inspires As Liverpool Puts Five Past Manchester United
Egyptian International Mohamed Salah was in blistering form as his hat-trick inspired Liverpool to a 5-0 thrashing of Manchester United in the Premier League at Old Trafford.
Paul Pogba was once again named on the bench for Manchester United as Marcus Rashford started, while Fred and Bruno Fernandes were fit to start. Liverpool were without Fabinho in midfield as Ibrahima Konata and Diogo Jota started for the visitors.
United should have gone ahead after four minutes when Fernandes found space in the box, but fired the ball over the bar with just Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson to beat. Moments later, United defence was sliced open when Salah’s beautiful pass found Keita in the box and he cooly placed the ball past De Gea.
United responded through Rashford, but saw his long-range effort go wide before Liverpool doubled their lead thanks to some horrible United defending.
Shaw and Maguire’s error resulted in a hashed clearance, allowing Keita to collect possession outside the box, slip in Alexander-Arnold on the overlap, and his cut-back was converted into the net by the unmarked Jota in the box.
It got more embarrassing for Solskjaer and United as Liverpool found space in the box again to score their third. After Maguire blocked Salah’s initial shot, the ball fell to Keita, who squared for Salah to convert at the near post to make the scores 3-0.
It was soon 4-0 as Salah found space in the box again, firing low into the bottom right corner. United fans let their feelings known as the referee blew the whistle for halftime, booing at length at one of the most one-sided performances seen at Old Trafford in recent decades, with hundreds already leaving the ground.
Early in the second half, Salah completed his hat-trick after Henderson’s defence-splitting pass found the Egyptian one-on-one with De Gea. Salah lifted the ball past the goalkeeper to score his 15th goal in 12 games this season.
United thought they’d pulled one back through Ronaldo’s expert finish after taking on Alexander-Arnold, but VAR intervened and he was found to be offside.
It got worse for United when Pogba’s dangerous challenge on Keita was picked up by VAR. Anthony Taylor showed him red after only 15 minutes on the pitch, as Keita was brought off on a stretcher with a suspected ankle injury.
United’s performance was nothing short of a embarrassing as referee blew the final whistle after a famous 5-0 thrashing by Liverpool at Old Trafford.
Liverpool move second into second place on the Premier League table and remain unbeaten since May after Jurgen Klopp’s 200th win as manager.
“Did I expect that? No. But what we did in the last third was absolutely insane,” said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. “How we pressed them high, won balls, scored wonderful goals. I actually told the guys at half-time we need to play better!”
“The result is insane. It will take a while if it ever happens again. After the game I got told this has never happened before in the long history of LFC and this group wanted to make new chapters for this big history, and tonight was a new chapter.”
Premier League results
Brentford 1-2 Leicester City
West Hame 1-0 Tottenham Hotspur
Manchester United 0-5 Liverpool
Chidi Nwoke/Premier League.
