Erik ten Hag gets his four big calls right as Manchester United beat Liverpool FC

Old Trafford was resplendent after a lick of paint brightened the scarlet red of the stadium on the outside and inside the only danger to the leaky roof was of it coming off.

Whether it is the pre or post-Sir Alex Ferguson Manchester United, the eruption that greeted Jadon Sancho's intricate opening goal is one of the most deafening in the stadium's 112-year history.

In these fallow times, only Scott McTominay's derby clincher in March 2020 rivals it. United thought they were back that day. On this day, they fought back.

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They played 'Glory glory Man United at half-time'. If that was premature, it was warranted at full-time as Erik ten Hag glanced up the floodlights that brightened his full-beam smile.

This was classic underdog United; intense and in-your-face. They took Liverpool on at their own game, backed by an angry mob of matchgoers who channeled their own abhorrence of the Glazer family's ownership and the tribalism of the occasion into a first victory for Ten Hag.

"We'll never die," they chorused at full-time, celebrating fouls in stoppage-time with all the gusto of a goal flying in. "Oh United, we love you," they roared. After a loveless afternoon at Brentford, it returned.

True to the cliché their greatest manager coined, they did not make it easy for themselves, conceding in the last 10 minutes to Mohamed Salah to ensure there would be no mass exodus on a night some aimed to empty the ground.

It was a performance reminiscent of the victories Ten Hag's permanent predecessor had a knack for whenever he was under the cosh. Ten Hag has been complicit in United's soulless start to the new campaign yet against their fiercest foes he gained a sense of