There are football matches and then there are Manchester United versus Liverpool. This one does not need a league table to give it meaning. It does not need a relegation battle beneath it or a title race above it to make the blood pump a little faster. Decades of history, genuine mutual contempt, and some of the most iconic moments the Premier League has ever produced make this fixture what it is regardless of what the standings say. And anyone who tells you this game is just about Champions League qualification is either lying to you or they have not been watching football long enough.
Context matters though and the context this time around is fascinating. For most of the recent past Liverpool have had the upper hand in this fixture. Klopp built something relentless at Anfield and his United counterparts simply could not match it for sustained periods. But this season, under Michael Carrick, something has shifted at Old Trafford. United have already beaten Liverpool once this campaign and this version of Liverpool, the one that arrives at Old Trafford on Sunday, is not the well-oiled machine that terrorised the league under Klopp.
The injury situation at Liverpool is genuinely damaging. Alexander Isak, who has been their sharpest attacking threat when fit, is out. Mohamed Salah is doubtful after picking up a minor muscle problem against Crystal Palace, and if he does not make it, Liverpool lose their single most experienced big-game performer. Alisson and Mamardashvili are both unavailable, meaning Freddie Woodman starts in goal at one of the loudest grounds in England. Hugo Ekitike is out for the season. Conor Bradley is missing. That is an enormous amount of quality stripped out of a single squad for a single fixture.
Even when everyone is fit, this Liverpool side has questions around it. Florian Wirtz is a player who looks genuinely world class for Germany, technical, fluid, decisive, but at Liverpool this season he has looked ordinary and at times below that. You cannot blame settling in for the whole campaign. It simply has not clicked the way Liverpool and their supporters were expecting when they broke the transfer record to bring him in. Frimpong has divided opinion among the fanbase. Kerkez, who was outstanding last season, has looked average this time around. Dominik Szoboszlai has been their most consistent performer in midfield and has essentially been asked to play everywhere except in goal. Cody Gakpo, who Slot kept when he let Luis Diaz leave for Bayern, has contributed very little. Diaz, meanwhile, looks completely reborn in Germany. That decision will continue to haunt Liverpool as the season closes out.
There is also the matter of what is happening off the pitch. Salah publicly calling out the manager created a friction that clubs of this size simply cannot afford in the final months of a season. The harmony that Carrick has built at United stands in direct contrast to what has been brewing at Liverpool where the supporters themselves have turned on the ownership for what they see as a lack of ambition and an unwillingness to act on a managerial situation that has been deteriorating for months. Arne Slot won the league in his first season, which was a remarkable achievement, but there is a strong argument that he was building on Klopp's foundations in year one and what we are seeing now is what Slot's Liverpool actually looks like when it needs to stand on its own.
And yet you never truly know what you are going to get from United. Carrick has beaten every team put in front of him when it has mattered. Every time you have expected him to crumble, to come up short against a big name or a big occasion, he has not. The win over Chelsea, the performances against Newcastle, the way the team has generally responded under him has been the best United football in years. Matheus Cunha is a doubt for this one and Luke Shaw came off against Brentford which adds a layer of uncertainty. Lisandro Martinez serves the last of his suspension so United are also without him at the back.
With all of that considered, a draw feels like the most honest prediction. United have not been consistent enough across the whole season to be trusted blindly in a game of this magnitude, even against a Liverpool side that is clearly not at full strength. But the occasion, the atmosphere at Old Trafford, Carrick's track record in big games, and Liverpool's injury crisis all point to United being more than competitive. Whether that is enough to win the thing outright is the question. Let me know your thoughts.