The Derby of the Northwest of England will face, to close the third day of the Premier League on Monday, two teams that suffer from two ills of very different kinds. The first, Liverpool, twelfth before all the matches were played this weekend with two poor draws against newly promoted Fulham and modest Crystal Palace, suffer from a bad circumstance. It is caused by several factors, such as the plague of injuries in midfield or the lack of success of his star signing, Darwin Núñez, who was sent off and will not be able to visit Old Trafford. The second club is Manchester United. He suffers from a disease that is more difficult to solve, an endemic and structural one. The Liverpool thing is a negative dynamic, the Ten Hag team thing is a brown one.
The trajectories of the two entities since the departure of Alex Ferguson from the Mancunian bench in 2013 and the arrival of Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool in 2015 are completely different. United never found a replacement to match the legacy of the Scottish coach, but that is not the biggest of their problems. The club with the most titles since the founding of the Premier League thirty years ago, with thirteen, belongs to the Glazer family. Under the baton of this multimillionaire family conglomerate, once Ferguson's star and his golden generation of footballers faded, the project has never pursued a specific sporting objective in a single direction, but has instead made leaps and rectified bad decisions with patches nonsense constantly.
For one thing, the only competitive manager United have had this decade has been Jose Mourinho. A Mourinho in decline, but who at least managed to expand the club's showcases with a League Cup, a Community Shield and a Europa League. With the tools he had at his disposal, he couldn't have done much more. To the instability on the bench (David Moyes, Ryan Giggs, Louis van Gaal, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Ralf Rangnick were always questioned) is added negligence in the market. Hiring of players who were in the final stages of their careers, such as Edinson Cavani, Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Bastian Schweinsteiger; or extravagance by players with few guarantees, such as Harry Maguire, Romelu Lukaku, Donny van de Beek, Fred or Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
This year, despite the arrival of Ten Hag, who seemed to have a project idea behind him (and probably has it in his head), the club has only increased its lurching in the market. Lisandro Martínez arrived, whose level is yet to be tested; and Christian Eriksen, after his heart problems and his brief spell at Brentford. The names that have tried to fish in this final stretch sound worse: Marko Arnautovic or Adrien Rabiot. Casemiro ended up arriving, but for a not inconsiderable price for a 30-year-old player, and he is also not the one that best fits Ten Hag's football philosophy.
Liverpool were in this same situation not so long ago, the years before Klopp's arrival. A giant (the second team with the most League titles in the history of England) mired in a sporting crisis and lacking in planning and ideas. However, the German coach was accompanied by a team of scouts and analysts who were well ahead of their time and a director with patience and the ability to manage a project in the medium-long term. The results took some time to come, but Klopp was given what a manager needs most to establish himself in a team and what he usually has the least of: time.
That's how Roberto Firmino, Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mané, Alisson Becker, Fabinho, Georginio Wijnaldum, Diogo Jota, Luis Díaz and an innumerable list of footballers landed at Anfield who, without the sign of those who were arriving at United, showed the profound analysis behind their signings and justified the large outlays that Liverpool made. A Champions League, a Premier League, several cups, runners-up with historical scoring levels. In seven years, this club was able to rise from the ashes and once again rub shoulders with the aristocracy of European football. United has a mirror in its neighbor to look at itself.
Liverpool's current situation is not ideal, but their poor start to the season has more to do with circumstances beyond their control than their actual level. They arrive at the derby with many important casualties, such as Thiago Alcántara, Joel Matip, Diogo Jota, Ibrahima Konaté, Curtis Jones or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain due to injury, in addition to Darwin Núñez due to expulsion (he will serve three suspension games). Those from Manchester will only have the loss of Anthony Martial. However, the current low mood of the squad is a greater handicap than any injury. It should be remembered that Ten Hag's men beat Liverpool 4-0 in pre-season and that, if they win on Monday, they would be ahead of them in the standings, but it goes without saying that this game will be very different.
