In the adjacent technical area, Jurgen Klopp ripped the baseball cap from his head and spiked it onto the turf.
He looked like a man possessed.
Ashley Young, a thirty-three-year-old winger-turned-fullback, had single-handedly contained Mohamed Salah, the league's top scorer.
Yet his own players, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Trent Alexander-Arnold, were treating defending like a non-contact sport.
"Stupid! That is fucking stupid!" Klopp roared, his voice cracking over the noise of the Stretford End.
His golden hair whipped wildly in the Manchester wind, giving him the appearance of a deranged conductor.
"Neither of them even touched the ball! At that critical moment, they still thought about sticking a foot in? Put a body on him! Bump him! Pull his shirt! Break the rhythm! There were a hundred ways to stop him, and you chose the stupidest one!"
The Liverpool assistant coaching staff sat in terrified silence on the bench.
They wanted to defend the eighteen-year-old right-back, but they knew better.
Talking back to Klopp when he was in this state was a one-way ticket to the reserves.
...
On the pitch, the match resumed, but the dynamic had shifted.
Jose Mourinho, prowling the touchline in his dark overcoat, made a subtle hand gesture. It was a signal to Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic: Intensify the central penetration.
Switch play to the left.
Kill the boy.
Mourinho's adjustments were never as straightforward as they appeared to the naked eye. The timing, the angle of the pass, and the specific executor of the move were meticulously calculated.
He had smelled blood in the water on Liverpool's right flank.
The plan was simple: isolate Trent Alexander-Arnold and destroy his confidence before halftime.
Ling received the ball near the halfway line. Instead of looking for a one-two with Pogba, he turned and drove straight at the Liverpool defender.
Stepovers.
Body feints.
Sharp, violent changes of direction.
He cycled through his entire repertoire of dribbling moves. Within three minutes, he had beaten Alexander-Arnold twice, turning the young Scouser inside out.
Chamberlain, traumatized by the earlier goal, refused to push forward to press, staying deep in a desperate attempt to plug the leak.
If not for Dejan Lovren frantically covering across to clear a low cross, Manchester United would have been 3-1 up before the break.
Ling was dismantling Liverpool's entire flank system by himself.
"He's cooking him on live TV," Gary Neville chuckled on the commentary gantry. "Trent looks like he's on ice skates."
Peep-peep!
The referee blew the halftime whistle, and the relief on the faces of the Liverpool players was palpable.
Because they had been forced to shift their entire defensive structure to cover the right side, space had opened up centrally.
Paul Pogba had found pockets of space to drive forward, posing a massive threat with every touch.
When Pogba was focused, he was unplayable.
Trent Alexander-Arnold trudged toward the tunnel, head bowed, staring at his boots.
Normally, a duel on the wing was a back-and-forth affair—you beat me, I beat you.
But today? He felt like a child playing against men. He had failed to showcase his lethal crossing ability and had been humiliated defensively.
He looked up and saw Ling walking ahead of him, chatting casually with Lukaku.
A surge of hot anger flooded Trent's chest. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
He had always had a short temper.
But today, it was clouding his judgment. If he had judged the situations calmly, he wouldn't have been sold down the river so easily.
Ling sensed the gaze.
He glanced back over his shoulder, saw the rage in the kid's eyes, and gave a slight, indifferent shrug.
'Good.'
'Let him be angry.'
An angry defender is an irrational defender.
If Arnold tried to dive in aggressively in the second half, Ling would simply skip past him again. Or better yet, draw a penalty.
Of course, if the kid tried to pull a Kieran Trippier and play dirty, Ling wouldn't mind giving him a discrete elbow to the ribs to cool him down.
The dressing rooms were a study in contrasts.
Inside the home locker room, the atmosphere was cool and analytical. Mourinho stood before the tactics board, moving magnets with precision.
"Listen closely," the Portuguese manager said, his voice low. "Klopp is emotional. He will tell them to fight. They will strengthen their right flank defense. Ling, you need to change the point of attack. Drop five to fifteen meters deeper. Drag Arnold out of position. Stretch their defensive shape vertically."
Mourinho tapped the space behind the Liverpool midfield. "When the gap opens, do not dribble. Look for the diagonal pass into the space between their second and third lines. Find Juan, he will be free."
He turned to the midfield giant. "Paul, when Ling drops deep, you push forward. Create numerical superiority. Overload them."
The United players leaned against their lockers, nodding.
...
Down the hall, the away dressing room was loud.
After giving the team a collective roasting, Klopp pulled Alexander-Arnold into a quiet corner.
The boy looked broken.
"Look at me," Klopp said, grabbing Trent's shoulders. "You are going to be the best right-back in the world. But today, you are learning a hard lesson. Learning to channel anger into strength is part of growing up. Do not let him get in your head."
Klopp knew the kid's mentality was teetering on the edge of collapse.
If Trent wasn't so crucial to their attacking system—literally the only source of width on the right—Klopp would have hooked him.
For now, he had to coax him, massage the ego, and pray he didn't get a red card in the second half.
...
The fifteen-minute break evaporated.
Old Trafford regained its roar as the teams re-emerged.
The broadcast director cut to the VIP box.
Sir Alex Ferguson and David Beckham were sitting together, chatting and laughing.
Beckham had a faint, aged scar near his eyebrow—a reminder of the infamous "flying boot" incident. They had gone twelve years without speaking after Beckham left for Madrid, only reconciling at a charity match in 2015.
Now, the mentor and the apprentice were united again, enjoying the dominance of their club.
The camera panned to another legend, Sir Kenny Dalglish.
His expression was grim, his face set like stone.
He had come to Manchester expecting revenge for the humiliation at Anfield—the day they named the stand after him, only for Ling to ruin the party with a winner.
He considered that day a stain on his legacy.
Seeing the scoreline now, the old Scotsman looked like he had swallowed a lemon.
Tweet!
The second half began.
United attempted to push forward immediately, but they hit a wall.
Liverpool's pressing was frenzied, maniacal.
Jordan Henderson might have been missing, but the collective energy forced United to retreat deep into their own half.
In Mourinho's philosophy, this was acceptable.
Prolonged possession against a pressing team only increased the risk of errors in dangerous areas. He was happy to concede the ball.
In the transition between attack and defense, Liverpool would be vulnerable.
Liverpool showed no hesitation.
They launched a storm-like offensive, embracing a "burn the boats" mentality.
Chamberlain and Alexander-Arnold abandoned any pretense of marking Ling. They surged forward, joining the attack as high wingers.
The message from Klopp was clear: We don't care if they counter.
We are going to outscore them.
"Crisp passing! Relentless movement! This is Heavy Metal football!" Carragher screamed into his microphone.
The away end roared, sensing the shift in momentum.
United resembled a lone boat in a vast ocean, straining against endless, crashing waves.
In the 53rd minute, the breakthrough in play occurred.
Alexander-Arnold and Chamberlain combined with a lightning-fast one-two to bypass the United midfield.
Ling tracked back to tackle, but Trent dropped his shoulder and exploded past him.
"Five Arnolds couldn't defend against one Arnold!" Klopp had once joked.
It highlighted his immense attacking talent, a description usually reserved for players like Marcelo.
When he was running forward, he was world-class.
Liverpool's forwards sprang into action like a coiled spring.
Mohamed Salah cut sharply inside to the half-space, dragging Ashley Young with him and creating a massive lane of width for Arnold to exploit.
Roberto Firmino dropped deep to the edge of the box, pulling the center-backs out of position.
Sadio Mané weaved through the defensive line, harassing David Luiz and Smalling.
"They are overloading the box!" Neville shouted, the concern evident in his voice. "United are too deep!"
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