Manchester United 3-1 Liverpool: Takeaways

Manchester United made up for their lacklustre performance at Swansea by hitting three past rivals Liverpool at home at Old Trafford. It almost looked like nothing was going to happen due to a really poor first-half from both teams. But the second-half could not have gone better with four great goals to applaud and a steamrolling job by Manchester United to claim the three points with a 3-1 victory.

Here are three takes from the game:

A Game of Two Halves

The first-half was hardly a classic; and ended with just three shots in all none of which were on target. United had two of those and had the better of the first-half but it was nothing overwhelming. The team didn’t look that creative and the reliance on Darmian and Shaw to provide pace and that attacking-edge clearly showed.

The substitution of Memphis Depay at half-time proved to be the catalyst for change. Ashley Young injected that pace on the left of the field, and simply kicked Manchester United into gear and Liverpool could not match it. This was doubled when Anthony Martial was introduced; the young Frenchman an unknown quantity which actually played to his advantage.

The Liverpool defenders were caught off guard, and Martial took full advantage. Fellaini was playing behind Martial which suited the Belgian a lot more and allowed him to hold the ball up for Martial and the others to use more effectively.

Whatever Louis van Gaal said at the break seemed to do the trick. The only worry for United fans is that slow and sideways performances like the first-half could be common this season rather than the much improved and extremely exciting performance of the second-half.

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The Daley Show

For all the questions that have been asked of the Dutchman since he was converted into a centre-back; Blind seems to have answers. Despite struggling against Swansea, the United defence looked much better this time round albeit with the presence of David De Gea now back behind them between the sticks.

He did not look out of his depth and also had an air of confidence about him. Perhaps the poor showing from the Dutch in the week helped him find his feet in this one. If that was the case then United fans can thank the Dutch for fixing Blind.

He also showed what he had in his locker with a superb effort to open the scoring and put United ahead. Blind was named Man of the Match and proved he could get the job done in attack and defence. About 18-yards outside the box, Blind curled it in with his left foot and watched it fly-past Mignolet.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Blind said of his goal:

"We practised it a lot and it went in so. Sometimes they go in, sometimes not, sometimes you need to take a touch."

Needless to say, clearly practice makes perfect.