Harry Maguire hands Manchester United late win over misfiring Liverpool

Harry Maguire’s late header secured Manchester United’s first win at Anfield in almost a decade and gave head coach Ruben Amorim back-to-back league victories for the first time in his tenure.

The visitors looked to have been denied by Cody Gakpo’s 78th-minute equaliser, but centre-back Maguire became the latest player to expose Liverpool’s weakness at set-pieces with a powerful header.

United had ridden their luck after Bryan Mbeumo scored the quickest Premier League goal – after 62 seconds – on this ground between the two sides, with Gakpo hitting the frame of the goal three times, but his most glaring miss came with three minutes to go when he planted a close-range header wide of an open goal.

VICTORY AT ANFIELD!

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 19, 2025

While United, now only two points behind their arch-rivals, and Amorim will feel they have turned a corner with possibly the standout result of his reign so far, Arne Slot is left to consider what has gone wrong with his misfiring side.

Liverpool lost a fourth successive match for the first time since November 2014 and a first home league game for 400 days.

Amorim opted to leave £66million striker Benjamin Sesko on the bench and go with a mobile front three of Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Mason Mount.

It was justified in the first half, with the former two and Bruno Fernandes particularly effective in giving the left side of Liverpool’s defence – Virgil van Dijk and Milos Kerkez – a real test and that was the avenue from which their early goal arrived.

Van Dijk caught Alexis Mac Allister as the pair jumped with Mbeumo for an aerial ball and the United forward ran on to collect Amad Diallo’s pass and clip a shot between the gap between Giorgi Mamardashvili’s left arm