Man Utd suffered another desperate day in a season of shame as they were beaten 4-0 by Liverpool at Anfield.
There was a point not long after Manchester United had conceded their third goal at Anfield that Jesse Lingard sprinted to close down Joel Matip, Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk as Liverpool tried to build another move from the back.
Eventually, the three managed to play around Lingard, who turned around to see his teammates had abandoned him, lacking the commitment and the energy to follow him in. Lingard’s furious reaction told you everything needed to know about what he thought of them.
This is a player who is leaving the club this summer but for his time on the pitch at Anfield he looked like he cared more than the rest of them. It really is that simple.
Lingard’s displays against Norwich and Liverpool are a sign of what this team have been missing for most of the campaign. The 29-year-old isn’t always full of quality, but he is full of energy and endeavour. On Tuesday night he shamed some of his teammates.
You could smell the fear on that United teamsheet when it landed an hour before kick-off at Anfield. Rangnick had avoided using a back three at any point up to this in his tenure, but so sure were this club of what was coming their way they felt damage limitation was their only option.
This wasn’t a team picked with the intention of winning this football match, it was a team picked with the sole intention of avoiding embarrassment. They failed on that front as well.
Rangnick had explained how well the back three had worked in training at Carrington, but United’s hopelessly out-of-form defence are fortunate they are training against United’s hopelessly out-of-form attackers.
“We were training like that yesterday and showed video analysis. It worked well yesterday in training and we will see if it works today,” Rangnick said before kick-off.
Not only did it not work. It fell apart to the first straight ball Liverpool played. With five defenders on the pitch, United managed to let three Liverpool attackers sprint beyond them from the halfway line. It was genuinely pathetic.