Klopp’s show of pity is a damning sign of Manchester United’s plight

It is a familiar post-match scene. The manager sits up on a little stage, the press down in front of him, and attempts to explain it all away, to make his excuses. And so there we were at Anfield on Tuesday night, in the aftermath of Manchester United’s 4-0 hiding by Liverpool, a result that begged many questions, including whether it had been more or less humiliating for the visitors than the previous instalment. That was last October, when Liverpool won 5-0 at Old Trafford.

How had it happened again? The club is “obviously in a difficult situation”, came the response, a line that touched on United’s myriad problems, taking in the fan fury towards the ownership and even some of the players, the lack of joined-up thinking, the dismal form, a selection crisis.

“Look at the lineup tonight,” he continued, before pointing out that the central midfielders Scott McTominay and Fred were among those missing because of injury. Well, McTominay was on the substitutes’ bench but he was not able to come on. “McTominay was only here to show up. I don’t think he was ready.”

When it rains, it pours and Paul Pogba would be forced off in the 10th minute with a calf strain. In the 5-0, the midfielder had been sent off 15 minutes after his introduction as a half-time substitute. “When you are already in a difficult situation, very often in life you get another knock and that’s what [happened] … In the game, Paul has to go off.”

At least, there was a note of optimism about the future. “I know it will not last for ever,” he said. United, he added, “will strike back … be there again. The club is too powerful.”

The words there, ladies and gentleman, not of the United interim manager, Ralf Rangnick, but of his Liverpool counterpart, Jürgen