Suggestions were made that Jose Mourinho just might go for three at the back at Anfield.
Certain outlets suggested that the defensive trio of Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Eric Bailly would line up ahead of David De Gea on Saturday afternoon but several eyebrows were raised when Bailly didn’t even make the matchday squad against Liverpool.
And while Mourinho has regularly rotated between Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial over the course of the season, many fans hoped that the England international would start against the Reds however Martial was preferred.
Prior to the game, the United manager was asked about his thinking behind the two key calls and he revealed that his hands were rather tied when it came to submitting his teamsheet.
“I don’t think we have many options,” Mourinho told Sky Sports. “Fellaini was injured with the national team, Bailly was injured with the national team and Rashford was injured with the national team. We don’t have many options.
“I never complain about that. I was just mentioning it to you because the next question is maybe why is Rashford not playing? Why is Bailly not even on the bench? But, okay, since the moment we know the players we have available, we thought about the match and we thought about our options and we made these decisions.”
The teams are below…
United: De Gea; Valencia (c), Jones, Smalling, Darmian; Herrera, Matic; Young, Mkhitaryan, Martial; Lukaku. Subs: Romero, Blind, Lindelof, Tuanzebe, Lingard, Mata, Rashford.
Liverpool: Mignolet; Gomez, Matip, Lovren, Moreno; Henderson (c), Can, Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Coutinho. Subs: Karius, Alexander-Arnold, Klavan, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Solanke, Sturridge.
