Old Trafford hosts a tightly poised Premier League meeting this Sunday as Manchester United and Liverpool prepare for their 246th fixture. The sides arrive separated by three points. United beat Liverpool 2\u20131 at Anfield in October, while Arne Slot\u2019s debut at Old Trafford produced a 3\u20130 win for Liverpool last term.<\/p>\n
The contest may come down to individual battles. First is the duel around Bruno Fernandes. Ryan Gravenberch was the recipient of last season\u2019s Premier League Young Player of the Season award, but it is Bruno Fernandes who now appears set to define this campaign. After his 19th assist of the term in Monday\u2019s win over Brentford, one off matching the all-time division record for a single campaign, United\u2019s skipper is the front-runner to win the league\u2019s Player of the Season for 2025\/26. He has eight Premier League goals and a league-high 114 chances created. Stopping Fernandes would tilt the game firmly in Liverpool\u2019s favour. That is the task for Gravenberch, supported by Alexis Mac Allister in Liverpool\u2019s double pivot. Gravenberch struggled to contain Fernandes in the reverse fixture at Anfield, where he was hooked after an hour; Fernandes created three chances, grabbing an assist and managing 12 passes into the final third.<\/p>\n
The second key matchup is Dominik Szoboszlai against Casemiro. Szoboszlai has been Liverpool\u2019s standout performer, winning five of the club\u2019s eight Player of the Month awards and contributing 12 goals and nine assists in all competitions. With Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 missing through injury and Mohamed Salah also out, more creative responsibility will fall to Szoboszlai. Casemiro will be charged with shackling Liverpool\u2019s No. 8. While noted for timely attacking contributions this season, Casemiro\u2019s return to his defensive best and Kobbie Mainoo\u2019s reintegration have enabled him to concentrate on stopping opponents.<\/p>\n
Finally, Alexander Isak seeks late redemption in a difficult debut season. A mixture of expectation and injury has limited him, but after his fourth Liverpool goal in last weekend\u2019s victory over Crystal Palace, he has a few more chances to contribute. A strong performance at Old Trafford would offer a welcome confidence boost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Old Trafford hosts a tightly poised rivalry: three matchups likely to shape the 246th meeting. Read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1083,969],"tags":[195,1023,342],"class_list":["post-13570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-alexander-isak","tag-alexis-mac-allister","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}