‘He has to…’ Wayne Rooney critical of Liverpool duo against ‘lucky’ Manchester United

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For the second time in as many weeks, Manchester United and Liverpool played out a pulsating and entertaining game of football.

Perhaps if there was an extra half an hour, like there was in the FA Cup, then fans would have probably seen a winner.

But Liverpool will be kicking themselves because they dropped valuable points in the Premier League title race after their 2-2 draw at Old Trafford on Sunday.

In the first half, with Luis Diaz opening the scoring, Manchester United looked down and out. 

Once again, Erik ten Hag was watching his players concede chances galore, with the team conceding 28 efforts on their goal in total, the same amount at Chelsea in midweek and an incredible 31 against Brentford the week before.

Wayne Rooney was pretty honest in his assessment, he felt that his former side were ‘lucky’ that the away team didn’t have their shooting boots on, as he told Premier League Productions (07/04/24 at 5:45 pm).

Manchester United’s all-time leading goalscorer was critical of Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez for the chances they missed.

Nunez did provide Diaz with the assist for the opening goal, whilst Salah scored the late penalty to rescue a point for his side.

But both of them can’t argue that they missed chance after chance and it was a key reason why their team dropped valuable points in the title race.

Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez v Manchester United

“I think the Nunez one before, he has to pull it back,” said Rooney.

“But Salah, you expect him to tuck that away. Again, he had a chance late on, so Manchester United were lucky at times, with the chances the Liverpool forwards weren’t clinical enough.”

Mohamed Salah looking rusty

It has been a few weeks since Salah returned from injury, but it’s fair to say that he is still looking rusty in front of goal.

Yes, he did score the winner against Brighton last week, but only after missing several chances.

After spending some weeks away from the pitch, it’s clear that Salah has lost that cutting edge and he needs to get it back, as soon as possible.

Perhaps the midweek knockout games in Europe will help because their flying Egyptian winger needs more starts under his belt and minutes out on the pitch.