Featured Image Credit: Sky Sports
Topics: Manchester United, Premier League, Liverpool, Brentford
Daniel Marland
Topics: Manchester United, Premier League, Liverpool, Brentford
Manchester United players ran a whole 19km more in Monday's 2-1 victory over Liverpool than their humiliating 4-0 defeat to Brentford nine days ago.
Goals from Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford gave Erik ten Hag his first three points as United manager after a dogged performance.
It's a huge turnaround from their humbling at the Gtech Stadium two weekends ago, which saw the Red Devils run a pitiful 95.6km.
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Against Liverpool, that rose to 113.8km and every player was performing at their physical peak for 90 minutes.
Jurgen Klopp's side are one of the most intense in England but they weren't up to speed against a United team eager to prove a point.
They managed to make 12 interceptions, double what the FA and Carabao Cup holders managed with six per Sportsmail.
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United had less possession than against Brentford, hence their improved running stats, but made their 29 per cent count.
As well as less of the ball, they had 12 shots compared to 15 versus the Bees.
In defence, Raphael Varane replaced captain Harry Maguire and it had a huge impact. United only committed 11 fouls and received three bookings.
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Ten Hag made three more changes too, with Luke Shaw, Fred and Cristiano Ronaldo dropped for Tyrell Malacia, Scott McTominay and Anthony Elanga respectively.
Elanga started out wide which meant Rashford through the middle for United.
Rashford finished the game with most sprints on the pitch and praised his side's tactical set-up at full-time.
He told Sky Sports: "I think it’s just the versatility we have in the team, we can do many different things, especially in attack.
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"The game was going well in the first half. We were attacking some good spaces but we weren’t quite getting the end product that I think we deserved.
"In the second half, probably slightly less clear cut chances but we did better with them and for us to be able to switch and chop and change positions like that is always a positive."