Andy Robertson says Liverpool had the Old Trafford crowd ‘exactly where we wanted them’ in Sunday’s win over Manchester United.
The Reds crushed their arch-rivals 3-0 on their own turf thanks to a Luis Diaz brace set up by Mohamed Salah, who added a third in the second half.
It could have been even worse for Man Utd, with Trent Alexander-Arnold seeing a seventh-minute goal disallowed by VAR for an offside call on Salah.
However, rather than giving United fans a boost, Robertson believes it helped swing the game further in Liverpool’s direction, putting the near-74,000-strong Old Trafford crowd on edge.
“I think it did more for us than it did for them even though it got disallowed,” Robertson told Liverpool’s official website.
“I think we just thought, OK, this is it, we’ve got them kind of where we kind of want them, we know how to break them down now and it’s up to us to go and do it again. Quite quickly after it we did, obviously the goal stood and kind of after that we just controlled the game and we forced them into mistakes.
“Obviously there is a big crowd, a lot of expectations and they started getting frustrated and that’s exactly where we wanted them and then we just started playing our football, hurting them in ways we believed we could and we were clinical in front of goal, which made for a pleasing afternoon.”
Not that Liverpool ever need an extra reason to enjoy beating Man Utd, but Sunday’s victory will taste even sweeter for the Reds given their failures at Old Trafford last season.
Liverpool lost 4-3 after extra-time in the FA Cup in March, followed by a 2-2 draw in April that kick-started a run of just three wins in their final eight Premier League matches to fall out of the title race.
Robertson was certainly happy to help put things right.
“I think we were really frustrated here last season because I thought in the two games that we played we dominated the games and we didn’t end up with the results we wanted, especially in the FA Cup because I thought we were in complete control and threw it away,” said Robertson.
“From that point of view, we were extremely frustrated by those two performances, so when you come here again you want to put that right and you don’t want to be feeling the same in the changing room after the game.
It was certainly a different changing room today and we are just delighted. Before the international break, I think it’s crucial kind of to get the three points and set us all on our way happy and excited, and it’s done that.
“Hopefully, everyone can come back fit and fighting fit and obviously, after the internationals, it’s a really intense period of time and if we keep going the way we are going we will get some good results along the way.”
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