Bruno Fernandes scored a stunning late freekick as Manchester United saw off Liverpool from the FA Cup fourth round with a 3 – 2 win on Sunday.
The Reds came off the back of a first home defeat in the league on Wednesday, since 2017 to snap up a win against Manchester United. But, the Red Devils proved a formidable opponent as Liverpool woes continued.
The reigning champions have won just one of their last seven matches – a 4-1 win against Aston Villa in the previous round of the FA Cup.
The visitors took the lead through Mo’ Salah’s opener, with the Egyptian’s second of the game bringing the Reds level after Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford had put the Red Devils ahead.
But, a well-taken Bruno Fernandes’ setpiece settled the tie after 78 minutes to beat Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson at the far post.
After the game, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp admitted that his side did not play at the level required to beat Manchester United.
However, Klopp said he was happy with many aspects of his team’s performance, even though he feels they made too many mistakes in key moments.
“There was a lot of good things and some mistakes around the goals. If you want to win here you have to be absolutely top and we were not,” he told BBC Sport.
“For the first goal we had no protection, we wanted it too much. Things like this should not happen but they can happen. We had too many players in a receiving position.
“We can take things out of this game, we try to learn from every game.”
Salah’s double takes his goal tally up to 19 in 28 appearances in all competitions.
“It’s good for Mo Salah, good for the confidence,” Klopp said of the Egypt international’s double.
“It was a tough game. We want it hard but tonight it was not enough. If you win a game there are negatives, if you lose a game too but I saw the boys really, really wanted it.
“We had problems on the counter-attack, it was intense, but there were positives.”
He later told reporters at a press conference: “We scored two goals, we had other situations here we could have scored as well, we had other situations where we created really well against a deep defending block, so there were a lot of good things.”
Klopp hopes his side can use what they learned from Sunday’s defeat to get back into their best shape when they face Tottenham in the Premier League on Thursday.
“I saw a lot of steps in the right direction, that’s good preparation for the Tottenham game, with their counter-attacking threat, so we know exactly what we have to do,” he said.
