Manchester United players have a simple choice after Liverpool embarrassment

The Manchester United starting XI on Sunday was the same as in the League Cup final. Unless those players elevate the club to greater heights, they will be remembered more for Anfield than Wembley.

United's players were as trapped as a limp combatant in the Colosseum. The longer the sport, the bloodier it got. It was a death by a thousand cuts.

Those United supporters in the Anfield Road End must have felt they had been teleported back to last season. The result and performance were akin to those sorry surrenders and it is the form that preceded Sunday's shellacking that made the shock factor such a jolt.

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United had won nine and drawn two of their previous 11 games. They had lost two of their last 32. A trophy was paraded on the Old Trafford pitch only five days ago. That hubris nearly backfired against West Ham.

Only West Ham are liable to let a team off the hook. Liverpool aren't. At their optimum, there is not a more ruthless team around and the United players underestimated the fixture.

Wout Weghorst and Raphael Varane were the only United players who approached the away end of their own volition. Steve McClaren and Varane had to instruct the others to acknowledge the supporters who were diplomatically applauding.

"I didn't get the applause at the end but no point in booing," messaged one supporter, who stayed. "We did enough of that last year. The team have a lot of credit in the bank at the moment with the fans. It was never going to be hostile."

Erik ten Hag eschewed the away-dayers. He strode onto the pitch, shook hands with the officials, turned 180 degrees, pressed the flesh of Cody Gakpo, and stomped towards the tunnel.