By the end of the siege of Anfield, Liverpool had amassed 34 shots. And Manchester United – browbeaten, beleaguered, butt-of-the-jokes Manchester United – had become the first team to deny them victory on Merseyside this season. It was the rearguard action that no one saw coming, the day when United, who have spent the season confounding expectations, did so by discovering a spine and some spirit.
They did so with a team that could form the basis of a quiz question in years to come, with the rookies and the randoms, the understudies and the underwhelming, the overpriced and the over the hill. United being United, they still cost over £300m but if it may be hard to name this side in a decade, Erik ten Hag scarcely envisaged selecting it in the summer, when he was willing to sell Scott McTominay, who instead captained United at Anfield.
