Liverpool go top after Mohamed Salah leads torment of Manchester United

With the second-half restart delayed, bizarrely, while the referee, Martin Atkinson, had his microphone refitted, Manchester United’s players tried to stay on their toes by passing a ball about. The Kop responded with olés. It was a typically caustic judgement but one that felt entirely appropriate.

To borrow another line from the Liverpool support, their arch rivals hardly touched the ball during what was another chastening defeat. After the 5-0 humbling from last October, this was another occasion that showed Liverpool to be on an altogether different plane.

United were a shambles, their defeat grimly inevitable from the moment that Luis Díaz gave Liverpool an early lead and they were in disarray when Mohamed Salah ran onto a pass from the substitute, Diogo Jota, to chip home the fourth.

Inspired by the peerless Thiago Alcântara, Liverpool got the result to take them to the top of the Premier League table, at least until Manchester City play Brighton at home on Wednesday night. Salah got the second – his first goal in open play for 12 matches – and Sadio Mané scored the third, with Liverpool piling on the pain. For United, the full-time whistle was the only mercy.

United might have signed for a non-humiliating defeat at kick-off, such have been their struggles, with the 5-0 loss at Old Trafford having cast a long shadow. Liverpool were in the deepest vein of form; United had almost forgotten what it was to win convincingly or to have a coherent and consistent plan.

Ralf Rangnick twisted again with his lineup and system, recalling Phil Jones in the middle of a back three, which he said had worked well in training on Monday. So that’ll do, then. The last time that United had gone with Harry Maguire, Jones and Victor