Wayne Rooney has shared how his Manchester United team-mates reacted in the dressing room at training the day after being thrashed by Liverpool
Liverpool’s record at Old Trafford understandably isn’t the best in the Premier League era.
Travelling to bitter-rivals Manchester United 37 times in all competitions since 1992, they have lost 22 of those clashes and won on just seven occasions. Yet with victories few and far between, it has ultimately made each rare Reds win all the sweeter. Especially when 5-0 and 4-1 thrashings over the Red Devils immediately come to mind whenever the next trip to Old Trafford comes around.
A hat-trick of Danny Murphy 1-0 winners under Gerard Houllier memorably also make up the list, along with a 4-2 victory behind closed doors in May 2021 – in what is one of Jurgen Klopp’s only two Liverpool wins at the ground.
Meanwhile, the remaining win came in March 2014 as Brendan Rodgers’ side ran out 3-0 winners on their way to narrowly missing out on the title, outclassing David Moyes’ side as a brace of Steven Gerrard penalties and late Luis Suarez strike wrapped up a convincing victory.
Of course, as has repeatedly been the case since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in the summer of 2013, United were in disarray at the time. Then led by David Moyes, who would be sacked little over five weeks after the 3-0 loss, defeat to Liverpool left them seventh in the table and 18 points off the league-leaders. Such a gap would extend to 22 points by the time a miserable campaign came to an end.
Having won five Premier League titles, the Champions League, the FIFA Club World Cup, and two League Cups under Ferguson, such a feeling was rare to Wayne Rooney
In a recent appearance on The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by SkyBet, he reflected on why United lost their way post-Ferguson. And that 3-0 defeat to Liverpool at Old Trafford was a particular lowpoint, as he was left aghast at how some of his team-mates responded in the dressing room at the Red Devils’ training ground the next day.
“Firstly, we were losing the core of the team really,” he said. “Giggsy (Ryan Giggs), Rio (Ferdinand), (Nemanja) Vidic, they were all on their last legs basically. We were losing that presence in the dressing room.
“There was literally me and Michael Carrick left still playing from that generation. Then you’re getting the likes of Jesse Lingard coming through, and (Danny) Welbeck, (Tom) Cleverley. They’ve had good careers but it was never the same.
“Football was changing. The behaviour of players, of course we’d misbehave or go out do whatever, but I think everything was changing around football and I think that was a big time.
“I always remember coming in after the Liverpool game when we got beat (at Old Trafford in 2014 under Moyes). Lads were coming in, dancing around the dressing room the next day, hip hop music on.
“I remember taking the music out. You can try to control as much as possible, but in the end you can’t really.”
Former team-mate Gary Neville then interjected, asking if he was referring to a clip Lingard had posted on social media of Paul Pogba dancing in the dressing room which went viral at the time.
