Liverpool 7 Man Utd 0: ‘welcome to Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool 2.0’ 

To put it simply, Liverpool’s 7-0 win over Manchester United was an annihilation. Jürgen Klopp’s side put on a masterclass at Anfield yesterday, scoring six goals in the second half as they condemned the Red Devils to the joint-heaviest defeat in their history.

In what was a tight first-half, Liverpool broke the deadlock two minutes before the break through Dutch forward Cody Gakpo. But in the second period, Klopp’s men delivered the “complete performance” with Darwin Núñez (two), Gapko’s second, Mohamed Salah (two), and Roberto Firmino leaving United “overwhelmed at a joyous Anfield”, said Phil McNulty on BBC Sport. With his brace, Salah also became Liverpool’s record Premier League goalscorer. The Egyptian has now scored 129 goals in 205 league appearances.

For Liverpool, the victory puts them within three points of the top four – they also have a game in hand on fourth-placed Tottenham. For United, the lows of this shocking defeat came just a week after the highs of ending their six-year trophy drought when lifting the Carabao Cup at Wembley.

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‘The strike force awakens’

Since becoming Liverpool manager in 2015, Klopp has led the club to success and completed the “full set” of major trophies: Premier League (2019-20); FA Cup (2021-22), League Cup (2021-22), Uefa Champions League (2018-19), Uefa Super Cup (2019), and Fifa Club World Cup (2019).

Despite the trophy haul, in recent seasons Klopp’s first Liverpool team has looked “aged” and it has been “reasonable to ask whether he was equipped to build another”, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian. One game is “nowhere near enough to assert that a new Liverpool is being born”, but it felt a “lot closer at the final whistle than it had at kick-off”.

The front three – Gakpo, Núñez and Salah – all scored twice, but “the goals were only part of it”. The trio had a “coherence and a zip” that has “been rare this season”. While there is “clearly still work to be done”, there is the sense that a front three of Salah, Núñez and Gakpo “could represent a viable future”.

Welcome to Klopp’s “Liverpool 2.0” – “the strike force awakens”, said Chris Bascombe in The Telegraph. The Reds have endured a “turbulent season”, but the reinvention of Gakpo and Núñez “assumes their status in a new era”, while Salah has reprised his role as the “ultimate goalscoring weapon”.

Wherever he has coached, Klopp has “always built one team capable of reaching their ceiling”. He is, however, “yet to do it twice at the same club”. That is “the challenge he accepted” when signing a new contract 12 months ago, according to Bascombe.

‘Absolutely atrocious’

While Liverpool celebrate having the bragging rights in the northwest, Erik ten Hag’s United team must lick their wounds after an absolute mauling. Speaking after the game, the Dutch head coach did not mince his words as he accused his players of being “unprofessional” for their capitulation in the second half. As a team “you have to stick together”, he said. “That is what we didn’t do. It is a surprise for me, I didn’t see this from my team. I don’t think it is us. I don’t think it is Manchester United. It was really bad, really poor.”

Ex-United and England defender Gary Neville was also scathing of the Red Devils’s performance. Speaking on Sky Sports, he labelled the second half as being an “absolute disgrace” and a “shambles” which was “epitomised” by captain Bruno Fernandes, “who has been embarrassing at times”. He believes that the players do not understand the “dangers of this fixture”. The players “have been eaten alive out there”.

The mauling of Ten Hag’s side “threatens to derail their season” as much as it has “reignited” Klopp's hopes of a top-four finish, said Goal.com. Aren’t Liverpool meant to be in crisis? We thought United were meant to be back? If anyone decided that yesterday’s match would be the first they watched this season, “they would have refused to have believed either of those narratives”. It was “absolutely atrocious” from Manchester United.