Preview: Liverpool vs. Manchester United
David Moyes, Manager of Manchester United and Brendan Rodgers, Manager of Liverpool. The Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester United takes place on September 1, 2013 at Anfield, Liverpool, England. (Getty Images)
Another match, another test for David Moyes with Manchester United visiting Anfield on Sunday lunchtime. The six places and 27 points that separated these teams last season might ordinarily pose little mental threat to United, but this is, after all, Moyes’ first visit to Liverpool since becoming United manager. Pressure is squarely on the man in the away dugout as the Reds seek to build on a positive start to the season.
Victory over Swansea City and the draw with Chelsea at Old Trafford last Monday has staved off the threat of early murmurings on the terraces. After all, while United picks up points the pressure on Moyes will be firmly focused on the lack of activity in the transfer market and not the team’s performance. And what better way to augment the positive support that the new manager has already received than to win at Anfield – a ground that witnessed five United victories in the past decade.
Still, with Wayne Rooney having suffered a freak training ground injury on Saturday, Moyes’s outfit arrives in Liverpool shorn of the man, who has hogged much of the media attention over the past four months. Rooney garnered generous praise for his performance against Chelsea, although the player’s match statistics underscored a belief that the striker is still rusty. Rooney completed, against Chelsea, 90 minutes for the first time since April.
The 10 stitches Rooney received following a clash with club captain Nemanja Vidic may keep the striker out of both United’s fixture 30 miles down the East Lanc Road, and England’s World Cup qualifying double-header next week.
In Rooney’s absence United may look to experience in Ryan Giggs, while Danny Welbeck and Ashley Young are pushing for a place in Moyes’s starting team. Rafael da Silva, Nani and Javier Hernández all miss out through injury, while Anderson and Tom Cleverley battle it out for a place alongside Michael Carrick in central midfield.
Meanwhile, Shinji Kagawa and Wilfried Zaha will be given the opportunity to impress, says the Scot, although neither will start at Anfield.
“We have got very few injuries, only Rafa really,” said Moyes ahead of breaking news of the gash Rooney received to his head over the weekend.
“Jonny got a game, which we felt he needed because he had missed a bit of pre-season, coming in and out at different times. Nani has done more training and is getting closer to it, Chicharito has had a hamstring but he has trained for the last three or four days and is doing much better. So we are very close to full strength.
“We still have Shinji Kagawa, Wilfried Zaha and Javier Hernández to have a good look at yet. They will all be used. Kagawa needed a week off when he came back from Japan, and Hernández could be fit this weekend. He’s not feeling his hamstring anymore but he still lacks games and match sharpness.”
Rooney’s absence will remove a modicum of heat from the tie, with the former Evertonian roundly abused on each visit to Anfield. So much so that Ferguson once used Liverpudlian brickbats as an excuse to leave the striker out of his United team.
With Luis Suarez also absence – the Uruguayan striker still serving a suspension for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovich last season – two major focal points for supporters’ vitriol will be missing.
Still, the experience will add to Moyes’s steep learning curve, with the former Everton manager rapidly being schooled in the size and intensity of focus that surrounds United.