For Manchester United, Sunday will be going back to where it all started to go wrong. Or, at least, where this latest phase started to go wrong. Erik ten Hag’s players were shaken when they returned to the Anfield dressing room after last season’s 7-0 defeat to Liverpool.
There is now a feeling that that result might have had more of an effect than people realised at the time. It was almost worse that it came so soon after the supposed launchpad moment of that Carabao Cup victory against Newcastle. The extent of the humiliation eroded a lot of the confidence and conviction that had been built during the cup run.
