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18th Oct 2016

Liverpool youngster’s backheel against Man Utd is more fun than Monday’s entire game

One for the future.

Tom Victor

Liverpool’s goalless draw with Manchester United on Monday night was a lot of things, but few will be quick to call it fun.

José Mourinho did a great job of setting up his team to neutralise the home side’s threat, and with a couple of exceptions – Philippe Coutinho forcing a big save from David de Gea chief among them – neither side did much to threaten the opposition goal.

Some called it tactical. Others called it intriguing. A few were more honest.

After that stalemate (yeah, it’s a chess pun, deal with it) the last thing anyone wanted was another Liverpool v Manchester United game the next day.

But thankfully the two clubs’ respective under-23 teams provided a bit more entertainment. Sure, we’ve only seen about six seconds of the game, but that’s enough.

The Reds selected a handful of players with first-team experience, including Danny Ings, Mamadou Sakho and last night’s unused substitute Marko Grujić, but it was a less heralded name who provided the stand-out moment in the 1-1 draw.

Harry Wilson has played more games for Wales than he has for Liverpool (don’t worry, it’s just one to zero – you didn’t miss that much), but he can’t be far from a first-team call-up on the evidence of his first-half goal against United.

Wilson showed great reactions to turn teammate Pedro Chirivella’s tame shot beyond opposition goalkeeper Sam Johnstone with a deft flick.

More of this, please.

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