Manchester United have announced the team that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has selected to try and secure three points against Liverpool in Sunday's Premier League fixture and it will be very familiar to fans as a lineup which is very similar to what they played last season, bar one major exception.
For this fixture which starts a tough run of game's in the Premier League for Solskjaer 's men, the manager has named an unchanged lineup from what started against Atalanta and though United came out 3-2 winners in the end, they struggled for the majority of the first half from disjointed pressing and gaps in the midfield, something that Liverpool will also look to exploit.
Bad pressing is worse than no pressing at the end of the day, and United fans have seen it multiple times this season, where there is no positional awareness from the team leaving gaps for the opposition to exploit and also attempts to press from individuals who have not been supported by teammates, therefore making it ineffective and a waste of energy.
Looking at this team you can't say there isn't the individual ability to score the goals needed to win this game, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Mason Greenwood starting, and also Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford who were doubts coming up to this afternoon to start.
But it's whether United can channel their second-half performance against Atalanta from the beginning of this game as the intensity and work rate of the whole team on the pitch was what truly won United that game, not individuals playing for themselves.
Ronaldo won't press for the majority of the game, at this point we are pretty certain of that. But you can't bet against his goalscoring ability, so it is up to the manager and the rest of the team to find a way to accommodate him into the side without detrimentally affecting the balance or stability of the side.
This is mainly the reasoning for selecting both Scott McTominay and Fred to start the game.
If United were to play as they did in the first half against Atalanta, Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool would obviously be delighted and thrive off the opposition's chaotic attempts to try and stop what will be a potent front three of Mohammed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota.
Personally, I would have liked to see a tactical shift from Solskjaer to get the best out of the personnel available to him, rather than this trial by fire approach which tries to force a group of talented individuals to play for each other and support each other for every minute of the game.
Back to basics seems like the safest option, but I feel if Solskjaer wants to take that next step as a manager, he needs to make a bold decision in order to try and fix his team. 3-at-the-back is a formation I have advocated for in the past but even a diamond in midfield in order to get Paul Pogba (who sits on the bench today) into the side without severely affecting the team's balance would also be an option.
Overall time will tell whether this is the right decision. I can't say that I don't think Ronaldo will get on the scoresheet, nor that we won't see a vintage Rashford performance.
But Liverpool this season are in form for a reason, and it just seems to be lining up perfectly that their strengths are the best to oppose United's weaknesses. The first goal in this game is going to be a big one, let's hope it's United who put it into the back of the net.
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