“We can show”: Arne Slot on Liverpool’s blockbuster fixture with Man Utd on Sunday
Manchester United suffered a disappointing 2-1 loss at Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend.
The match looked to be heading for a draw after Amad Diallo scored a second-half goal to cancel out Danny Welbeck’s strike.
However, poor defending allowed the unmarked Joao Pedro to head home the winner deep into stoppage time.
Erik ten Hag’s side are now set to host bitter rivals Liverpool who have comfortably won their opening two Premier League matches against Ipswich Town and Brentford.
However, manager Arne Slot is not getting carried away by their perfect start as he believes the showdown at United is where the real measurement of his team begins.
The Dutch boss hopes the Reds will show their best at Old Trafford but isn’t expecting an easy contest in Manchester.
In an interview to Sky Sports, Slot said: “It’s been a good start, but I said it after the game against Brentford that we have to understand the competition we faced. Brentford and Ipswich are two really good teams so I want to respect them for what they did, and we had a really hard time playing them.
“But I’m not expecting them to be in the top six, so we have still a lot to prove. And if you talk about control, going to Old Trafford is one of the difficult places to have control. And even if you have control, they can still counter-attack you in every moment.
“So it’s going to be a big test for us if we can manage to do similar things we did against Ipswich and Brentford on Sunday. It’s been a good start but with the upcoming fixtures we will see where we exactly are, and hopefully we can show the same and if not, we’re going to work really hard to manage doing the same in other big fixtures”.
Manchester United had an excellent 2024 summer transfer window as they added some top-quality players to their squad.
Unfortunately, new signing Leny Yoro suffered a long-term injury during pre-season and is now sidelined for three months.
However, Joshua Zirkzee, Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt are all expected to be part of Erik ten Hag’s team on Sunday.
If United hope to beat Liverpool, the three newcomers will have to produce a good performance this weekend.
The Red Devils also managed to secure a deal for Manuel Ugarte but he will be missing the important game as he wasn’t registered by 12 pm on deadline day.