We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at Old Trafford with our Man Utd vs Liverpool prediction and preview. Will Arne Slot’s winning start roll on?
Man Utd vs Liverpool Stats: The Key Insights
- Manchester United might be at home, but Liverpool are the big favourites to pick up all three points, with a 48.4% win probability.
- Mohamed Salah has netted in both of Liverpool’s league matches so far, and is the highest-scoring visiting player to Old Trafford in Premier League history.
- Liverpool have lost just one of their last six Premier League away games against Man United.
Two of the Premier League’s biggest rivals meet at Old Trafford on Sunday, though it is fair to say there has been a gulf in class between these sides, at least over the course of a season, for the majority of recent campaigns.
This is, of course, Arne Slot’s first game against Manchester United since becoming Liverpool head coach. None of the Reds’ last nine bosses have won their first league meeting with the Red Devils since Bob Paisley beat them 3-1 in November 1975. Meanwhile, George Kay is the only Liverpool manager to win his first away league game against United, winning 5-2 at Old Trafford in November 1936.
Slot and United’s Erik ten Hag met four times during their time in the Eredivisie – Slot’s AZ beat Ten Hag’s Ajax twice in 2019-20, before Ten Hag twice beat Slot’s Feyenoord side in 2021-22.
This will be the first Premier League game between two Dutch coaches since February 2016, when Guus Hiddink’s Chelsea won 2-1 at Ronald Koeman’s Southampton.
Liverpool have won their first two matches under their new boss, who has big shoes to fill following Jürgen Klopp’s departure. Both of those victories have been by 2-0 scorelines against Ipswich Town and Brentford. Twice before have they won each of their first three in a campaign without conceding, doing so in 2013-14 and 2018-19 – they beat United 1-0 on September 1 in the third game in 2013-14, so the omens are good.
No team has had more shots than Liverpool in the Premier League this season (37), while the Reds also have the highest expected goals total (5.3) and the lowest expected goals against total (1.0) so far.
Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, meanwhile, United have lost 13 of their 35 Premier League games played in September (W19 D3), only losing more often in May since 2013-14 (15). It’s more defeats than they suffered in the month in 76 games under the Scotsman (W45 D19 L12).
Assuming he plays, this will be Virgil van Dijk’s 200th Premier League game for Liverpool. The defender has been on the winning side in 139 of his 199 so far, already the most wins any player has picked up in his first 200 for the club in the competition.
At the other end, Mohamed Salah has already netted twice for Liverpool this season, and he is the highest-scoring visiting player to Old Trafford in Premier League history, with six goals. The Egyptian has netted in each of his last six away games against United in all competitions (9 goals in total).
Marcus Rashford might well be United’s best hope. He has only scored more goals against Leicester City (8) in all competitions than he has against Liverpool (7). All seven of these strikes have come in his 10 appearances against them at Old Trafford.
As for team news, Mason Mount will miss around five weeks with a hamstring injury sustained in last weekend’s late defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion, so Joshua Zirkzee could come in for his first start for United.
Liverpool are expected to be unchanged from their 2-0 home win over Brentford. Slot said at a press conference on Friday that new signing Federico Chiesa is unlikely to be involved. “He’s going to train with us today but it’s a bigger chance that he is not in the squad for Sunday than he is,” he said.
Man Utd vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
Liverpool have lost just one of their last six Premier League away games against Manchester United (W2 D3), while only Manchester City (9) have won away at Old Trafford more often than the Reds (7) in the competition’s history.
United have won just one of their last 12 Premier League meetings with Liverpool (D5 L6), beating them 2-1 at Old Trafford in their third game of the 2022-23 campaign.
The two old rivals faced one another three times last season, drawing 0-0 at Anfield and 2-2 at Old Trafford in the Premier League, either side of a dramatic 4-3 win after extra-time for United in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Man Utd vs Liverpool Prediction
Liverpool may not have beaten Man Utd last season in three attempts, but they have a 48.4% probability of winning on Sunday, according to our supercomputer.
United, meanwhile, only came out on top in 28.2% of the simulations the model ran. The match was drawn 23.4% of the time.
Man Utd vs Liverpool Predicted Lineups
Man Utd: André Onana, Noussair Mazraoui, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martínez, Diogo Dalot, Casemiro, Kobbie Mainoo, Amad Diallo, Bruno Fernandes, Marcus Rashford, Joshua Zirkzee.
Liverpool: Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk, Andrew Robertson, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz, Diogo Jota.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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