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Man United dig deep to earn draw at old foes Liverpool
Carl Markham • January 6th, 2025 9:31 am
Photo: AP
Manchester United have displayed some of the backbone manager Ruben Amorim had been demanding as they scored their first goals at Anfield since 2018 to earn a 2-2 draw against Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Home fans were gearing up to taunt their biggest rivals on Sunday as Arne Slot's side were just 10 minutes away from going eight points clear of Arsenal at the top with a match in hand.
But Amad Diallo stabbed home Alejandro Garnacho's cross - adding to Lisandro Martinez's first goal in two years - in the 80th minute to earn them a point, after United had conceded the lead to trail 2-1 when Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah's penalty turned things around.
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah celebrates scoring their second goal from the penalty spot | Photo: AP
The draw halted United's four-game losing run but coach Ruben Amorim was still unhappy, shrugging: "It's a point, a deserved point, but it's just one point, and we should get mad. Today we should be really disappointed."
Liverpool's princely defender Virgil van Dijk was unhappy too. "The way we conceded the two goals was unacceptable, lazy and careless, it shouldn't happen," he said.
Indeed, while the match brought the best out of United from a resilience point of view, it did not seem to have the same effect on the hosts, who were slow off the mark in a game only given the go-ahead at midday after heavy snow on Merseyside.
But quality endures and after a lacklustre first half Liverpool stepped things up after Martinez's fierce angled strike beat Alisson Becker and went in off the crossbar.
It was exemplified first by Gakpo, who scored his 10th goal in his last 15 appearances by cutting in on his right foot - sending Matthijs de Ligt sliding off the pitch - to smash a shot past Andre Onana.
But the coup de grace seemed to have been applied by Salah, whose 18th goal of the season saw him draw level with Thierry Henry in joint-seventh place on the all-time Premier League goalscorers chart with 175 goals.
Mac Allister's header from Trent Alexander-Arnold's cross hit De Ligt's raised left arm and although referee Michael Oliver played on he was informed by VAR he should view the monitor and he subsequently changed his mind.
Onana, who had engaged in some pre-penalty shenanigans with a number of Liverpool players, guessed the right way but Salah's shot was too powerful for him.
Usually, that would be that - especially against a United side who had lost their last three league games without scoring - but Diallo nipped in front of Andy Robertson to snatch a point.
Diallo had also struck at the end of extra time when United beat Liverpool 4-3 in a dramatic FA Cup clash last season, and was their hero with a 90th-minute winner against Manchester City last month.
In another dramatic match earlier on Sunday, Raul Jimenez scored a 91st-minute penalty to salvage a 2-2 draw for Fulham at home to Ipswich.
Relegation-fighting Ipswich went ahead through Sam Szmodics in the 38th and Jimenez levelled from his first spot-kick in the 69th.
Ipswich went in front again through Liam Delap's penalty in the 71st but when Jimenez was brought down by Leif Davis in the box, referee Darren Bond pointed to the spot again and the Mexican made no mistake.
- AP
