Manchester United Legend Picks Liverpool to Win

Less than thrilled by the way his old club have started life under Jose Mourinho and impressed by Jürgen Klopp’s continuing progress at Anfield, Manchester United legend Paul Scholes says that he expects Liverpool to take the points tonight when the two sides meet.

“If you were betting, you would be betting on Liverpool,” Scholes said while appearing on BT Sport over the weekend. “You can see Jürgen Klopp has stamped his way of playing on this team. There is a definite way about them. You know how they’re going to play.

“They are going to be quick, they are going to try to take the ball off you, and they are going to try to score goals by flooding the box. I was worried about them defensively, but with the form they are in, they look as good as any team in the league.”

Liverpool have had one of the toughest runs to start the season, and they’ve been largely impressive. If they can win tonight, they would be level on points with Manchester City and Arsenal at the top of the table. Win by a few and they could go clear on goal differential.

United, meanwhile, have had a solid but unspectacular start. They’re positioned for a top four challenge but, as yet, haven’t looked title challengers under Mourinho, which most expected them to be given the Portuguese manager is playing with the most expensive squad in football.

“He wasn’t ruthless enough in the offseason,” was Scholes’ take on what’s maybe not gone wrong at United, but what’s gone not-quite-right. “There is so much confusion about who should play. What I saw of Mourinho at Chelsea, he had 14 or 14 players who played every week.

“With United, it’s still a settling in period, and it’s going to take a bit of time for them to knit together and see what they are about. Is there an identity to the team yet? I don’t think there is.”