FOR years it has been one of THE big games of the season but right now it is a total mismatch.Liverpool may be ten points above Manchester United in the table but off the pitch they are ten years in front.
Harry Redknapp initially thought Liverpool would struggle in the Premier LeagueCredit: AFP
This isn’t so much a meeting of two Premier League giants as the perfect example of how to rebuild and recruit — and how not to!
If you’d told me a few months ago that one of these would be challenging for the title and the other still struggling to find their feet, it wouldn’t have been the biggest shock.
But I genuinely thought it would be United in the mix and Liverpool going for the top four at best.
Come on, you could hardly blame me. United had finished third, won the Carabao Cup and reached the FA Cup final in Erik ten Hag’s first season.
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They looked a club on the up after so many false starts.
I even tipped them to win the title. As someone who likes a flutter, that will never go down as one of my greatest tips!
If anyone was going to struggle, you’d have put your money on Liverpool after so many changes and so many new faces.
Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino had all left and the ones who came in were hardly household names.
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Alexis Mac Allister had won the World Cup, for sure, but Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch?
Apart from a few TV highlights, I hadn’t seen much of them.
You know how I’m always banging on about the most important people at the club being those responsible for recruitment?
Well, the ones at Anfield have earned their money, which is more than you can say about United, who I can’t see laying a glove on their old rivals.
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Redknapp initially thought Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United would challenge for the titleCredit: Getty
For years Michael Edwards was behind it at Liverpool, then Julian Ward and now Jorg Schmadtke, an old mate of Jurgen Klopp’s who arrived in the summer as sporting director.
I hear boss Klopp is more involved now, too, and they’ve got other good lads in Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows.
But at Old Trafford, no one seems to know for certain who is in charge of identifying and signing. And it shows.
I know from my own experience how difficult a job it is now. It’s not like years ago, when you’d see ten managers at a game trying to find players.
You’d be ringing others to pick their brains. I remember Sir Alex Ferguson calling about Luka Modric and Paolo Di Canio, but for various reasons he couldn’t get the deals done.
Nowadays, though, there isn’t the time, and — especially with ones from, say, South America — you’re reliant on the recruitment staff. The ones who always remain faceless.
Redknapp believes Jurgen Klopp’s advisers played a big part in his Liverpool successCredit: PA
It’s easy to forget Klopp was keen on Julian Brandt, who he knew from Germany, but his team told him Mohamed Salah — who they’d followed for four years — was a better bet. That didn’t work out too badly, did it?
It was the same with Andy Robertson, when he was looking at Benjamin Mendy and Emerson Palmieri.
See what I mean about how important it is to have the right people advising on recruitment?
So no wonder Klopp had every confidence Liverpool had found the right men last summer.
I must say he still had the nucleus in Salah, Virgil van Dijk — someone ignored years ago as “only doing it for Celtic” — and a great keeper in Alisson. United didn’t and don’t.
But the wrong signings then would have meant big trouble now.
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That’s how crucial it is to have the right men doing the recruiting.
If you still don’t believe me, just ask Ten Hag. More
