Jason McAteer: Liverpool v Manchester United has a different dynamic these days

Once upon a time Liverpool against Manchester United was one of the biggest fixtures in the world and while it’s still a massive game it’s got a different look about it now.

This isn’t a Premier League title fight at Anfield on Sunday – all they can do is upset us a little bit.

And while they’d love to do that and claim the bragging rights that go with winning this most special of fixtures, it won’t have a massive bearing.

People are talking about Liverpool wanting to go through the season unbeaten but I don’t think that’s something that bothers Jurgen Klopp at all and I doubt the players care either. So even if United do surprise us it won’t be a serious issue.

And nor will it disguise the differences between the clubs.

United are a long way behind Liverpool at the moment both on and off the pitch.

I don’t think Ed Woodward is doing a particularly good job there and he’s part of the problem, I also don’t think Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s the long-term solution. I understand the idea of building from a young team but you need experienced players around the place. It’s a big job at United and I’m still looking out for Mauricio Pochettino. I know he’s being linked with Barcelona but I feel he’d be a good fit at Old Trafford and think it’s on the cards.

I get the sense Solskjaer is keeping the seat warm for someone else. United is a winning club where success is demanded by shareholders as much as anyone. They need to be winning things and they aren’t. I would have cut my losses a few weeks ago but they are sticking with him.

United used to scare you. Scott McTominay and Fred – that’s never been a Man United midfield. Even Harry Maguire doesn’t seem to have settled alongside Victor Lindelof. They are a long way off being contenders.

Marcus Rashford is their one star man, their talisman. He’s got 14 goals in the Premier League and while he’s not yet the finished article – he’s still got a big miss in his locker – he’s only going to get better.

But if he doesn’t play on Sunday, that’s a huge miss for them.

I wonder how long Marcus Rashford will be there and this is another problem of trying to build a team around kids but not winning things. There’s talk about him changing agent and agents turn heads.

A good agent will be saying to Rashford – and lots of the other youngsters at Old Trafford – "look, this club is three or four years away from even contending again, you’ve got Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern and others knocking on the door". That’s a potential headache for United and would scupper Solskjaer’s plans of being able to build a team from youth.

When we played them at Old Trafford, United dug in and tactically set themselves up to be difficult to beat and they got the 1-1 draw. I said at the time I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sir Alex Ferguson hadn’t gone into the dressing room to rally the troops and articulate the enormity of the fixture because I know how much it meant to him. And they did okay in the first half and while Liverpool knocked on the door second half, Liverpool got away with it.

But I think it’s going to be different at Anfield. Everyone’s talking about wanting to batter United and put them in their place and if the players come out with that mentality and that attitude, start quickly, get a goal, it could be a long afternoon for United.

I reckon Liverpool will win 3-0 because we are keeping clean sheets for fun.

It’s a different game nowadays than when I played in these fixtures in the 1990s because then both clubs were competing for the league and there were never many points between us.

The big disappointment, of course, was the 1996 FA Cup final, a match which featured so much talent, everyone expected a spectacle and nothing happened. We’d just worked each other out.

Our tactics that day, believe it or not, were to let David Beckham have it.

Ryan Giggs played on the left and I was marking him. I deliberately tucked inside a lot more, kind of saying to Beckham, who we called Hollywood because he loved those raking, box-office 40 yard crossfield passes, "go on, go for it".

• Liverpool v Manchester United: match odds, form, stats, tactics & verdict

So we’d entice him into the Hollywood pass by showing him Giggs was on but, like Ronnie Moran would say, Beckham’s got to get his head down, then deliver that pass and that gave us time to get to Giggs or cut the pass out before it reached him, and we did it time and time again.

The 1996 cup final we basically cancelled each other out.

Jamie Redknapp had a chance in the first half that he should have taken and that was the only opportunity I can remember and even the goal was a mistake by David James. That epitomised the game. He’d had virtually nothing to do, then they had a corner and he felt he had to do something, so came and tried to punch or catch, dropped it, and Eric Cantona managed to thread it through six or seven players from the edge of the box.

Eddie Howe's fine work not enough to keep Bournemouth up

Eddie Howe’s got a bit in the bank considering what he’s done over the last four or five years at Bournemouth, He's balanced the books and kept their Premier League status, which I think is a fantastic achievement for a club that size.

I actually called it before Liverpool played them a couple of months back that Bournemouth would go down. They weren’t in the relegation places but I just didn’t see enough. All the injuries came about and they’ve been on a terrible run.

Eddie always seems to be able to get results against the big six – he recently got one against Chelsea and they seem to have a knack of rising to the occasion. I don’t know whether teams perhaps don’t take Bournemouth seriously enough.

But now they are on a worrying run and I don’t think they’ll stay up.

That said I still think Eddie and Bournemouth is a good fit. He’s undoubtedly achieved great things there and I’m not sure where the next step is for him. Remember he moved away to Burnley and couldn’t really hack it.

At a bigger club you’ve got to be able to spend big money, you’ve got to go into a different kind of market looking at elite players, international finished articles and spending 50 or 70 million pounds in the transfer market. That’s something Eddie’s never done at Bournemouth or Burnley so that might go against him. Can he handle big marquee players? I don’t know.

Newcastle are a bigger club than Bournemouth so are Everton. If he was making progress those are the types of clubs where Eddie would be worth a shot. People talked about Arsenal when that came up but it’s a really big step up for the reasons I mentioned.

I wouldn’t part company with him at Bournemouth. I think they owe it to him to see out the season.

Watford have finally found their man in Nigel Pearson

As soon as Nigel Pearson went in to Watford I fancied him to get them out of the relegation zone.

I just thought he’d have an instant impact but also keep it going. He’d have demanded the players play for him and he’s had some good results. They’re now unbeaten in seven and that’s because he’s getting the best out of good players.

As a club they were paying the price for chopping and changing managers. The players didn’t know whether they were coming or going and players get sick of that, get worried about their own role at the club, different tactics, different ideas, whether you are going to fit. Changing managers all the time tests the emotions of players and Nigel Pearson looks the type to be there a while and I think the players appreciate that.

He knows what he’s doing, isn’t afraid to point fingers and players – most players – don’t mind that. It’s demanding and sometimes players need a bit of strictness and discipline and he has brought that.

What next for Liverpool's key men?

I can absolutely understand why Real Madrid would consider making a move for Sadio Mane in the summer – and I could understand if Mane was tempted.

Real Madrid aren’t quite the force of old but they are still a glamour club and would turn heads.

It’s partly a cultural thing, partly a football thing, partly just being a new challenge for a player who, if Liverpool win the league this season, will have achieved all the big goals.

So it’s whether Mane wants a new challenge, while the challenge facing Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp is ensuring the players are hungry to go again just as they were this season after being crowned European champions.

Pep Guardiola has had to try to re-energise his team after two title wins and he’s found it tough but it’s something that Jurgen is brilliant at.

What I would say is that if Mane went I’d worry that it might be the start of things breaking apart because he’s absolutely at the top of his game at the minute and would take some replacing. He’d be harder to replace than Mo Salah in my eyes.

But we know the really big teams are out there trying to get better and under pressure to entice the best players on daft money. I actually think Sadio Mane is quite happy to stay at Liverpool although I can see Mo Salah itching to change things up, if not next summer then next season.

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