Here’s an introduction you might not expect to see – Liverpool could benefit from Manchester United staying honest and trying to win games without resting players.
Placed alone, that sentence sounds like a crazy paradox but as we all know, we’re living in strange times.
Never mind the pandemic, even an Everton away triumph at West Ham United will have been celebrated at Anfield. So just how has this scenario come about?
While Jurgen Klopp’s side took care of business themselves over the weekend with a 2-0 home win over Southampton to keep their hopes of Champions League qualification alive, a couple of other results might not have seemed to be the most positive for them at first glance as Chelsea – also vying for a top four slot – defeated Manchester City while Manchester United enjoyed a comeback success at Aston Villa.
However, those contrasting fortunes for the local rivals down the East Lancs Road which ensures the Champagne remains on ice at the Etihad could actually play into the Reds hands as they look for any advantage they can muster in a race in which they’re having to come from behind in.
Regardless of what happened over the weekend, the rearranged fixture between English football’s two most-successful club sides at Old Trafford on Thursday night was always going to be a typically hard-fought game like it is whenever old foes United and Liverpool do battle.
However, with the United fans’ anti-Glazer protests which included storming the Old Trafford pitch having forced the game to be postponed a week last Sunday and now crowbarred into an already busy end-of-season fixture schedule, just 48 hours after the Red Devils hosts Leicester City, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer may well have been tempted to field a weakened team for the visit of Brendan Rodgers’ Foxes (six points better off but having played a game more) whose faltering form makes them look the most likely of the incumbent top four who Liverpool could reel in.
When the United v Liverpool game was initially pencilled in for the Thursday night, Solskjaer blasted the schedulers, describing it as “physically impossible” and warning: “We are going to need everyone for these four games.”
But City’s loss followed by United’s win means the 20-times English champions, without a title since Sir Alex Ferguson’s last season in 2013, still have an outside chance of usurping the club their legendary Scottish boss described as “The Noisy Neighbours” at the summit.
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Admittedly it’s a hope perhaps as slim as Peter Crouch – Solskjaer said a United title this season would be: “The biggest upset in football history”.
But while the Norwegian is still understandably playing things down in public, declaring after the 3-1 victory at Villa Park: “At least we don't drive into a blue army tonight,” he added: “We'll try to delay it (City being crowned champions) as long as we can."
So with Pep Guardiola’s men not playing again until they travel to St James’ Park to face Manchester United old boy Steve Bruce’s Newcastle United on Friday night, Kopites can at least hope that Solskjaer must go all-out against Leicester City on Tuesday rather than throw in his stiffs from the fringes of his squad in what for his side could have been a dead rubber had the Premier League trophy already made its way back to City for the third time in four seasons.
Chelsea's win at the weekend may have just kept things interesting - and kept United honest.
