Man Utd lost 7-0 to Liverpool with their first-choice defence – this could get ugly

Beleaguered United head to Anfield, scene of a 7-0 humiliation last season, with a patched-up back line and in dire form

And so on to Anfield and back to the scene of where it first began to unravel for Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United. Coming just a fortnight after United ended a six-year wait for a trophy with victory in the Carabao Cup final and a run of just two defeats in 32 games, that 7-0 capitulation against Liverpool in early March, while utterly shocking in its nature, was viewed more as a freak result than a sign of something more sinister to come. 
The reality, though, is that United have barely delivered a convincing 90-minute performance since and the more you reflect on what has unfolded in the intervening period the more you wonder if Liverpool dealt a knockout blow of a more lasting kind. 
United have been beaten in 17 of the 44 games they have played since that dark day on Merseyside and the latest of those to Bayern Munich on Tuesday night not only dumped them out of the Champions League but means they have lost more games (12) than they have won (11) this season.
Such statistics are more than a blip. They point to a deeper malaise, the spread of which Ten Hag currently seems powerless to stop, and injuries alone cannot explain it, even if they present United’s beleaguered manager with even more unwelcome headaches.
United went to Liverpool with a first-choice defence last time out and look where that got them. This time they face the Premier League leaders in the midst of an injury crisis that deepened against Bayern. That makes the trip to Anfield even more forbidding for a team that does not score goals (see chart below) – at least domestically – but concedes them and is as short of a plan as it is low on confidence.
Already without Lisandro Martinez and Tyrell Malacia, and with Victor Lindelof not fit enough even to make the bench against Bayern, Ten Hag lost both Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw in the first half with groin and hamstring problems respectively with the former unavailable for Sunday. Shaw being available is a huge boost to the backline.
Ten Hag could be relying at Anfield on a centre-half in Raphael Varane, whom he had bombed out and who was handed his first appearance for a month out of necessity against Bayern, while the 35-year-old Jonny Evans is only just back from injury himself.
Liverpool and Mohamed Salah, who probably already smelled blood, will be licking their lips. A defensive crisis alone might not have felt quite as bad for Ten Hag were he not also without three of his main midfielders, Casemiro, Christian Eriksen and Mason Mount, because of injury and captain Bruno Fernandes through suspension.
Fernandes’ fifth booking of the campaign, for dissent in Saturday’s abject 3-0 defeat by Bournemouth, now looks even more costly. The Portugal midfielder produced a performance of extraordinary petulance in that surrender at Anfield nine months ago but Ten Hag would much rather be able to call upon his captain than not.
It will be almost five years to the day on Sunday since Jose Mourinho took charge of what would be his final game as United manager, also at Anfield, when Paul Pogba was on the bench as Liverpool ran out 3-1 winners.
Mourinho was sacked a couple of days later. Yet United still find themselves in the same old miserable cycle, this time with a manager who could end up clinging to his job for longer than he ordinarily might, given the protracted wait for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of a minority stake in the club to get the green light.
On Tuesday, Bayern barely got out of second gear against United. Ten Hag and his patched-up, deflated, demoralised team can only hope Liverpool do not go through them today.