Ultimately, it was not the 20th day of the Premier League, to open the year 2025 in England, which allowed Liverpool to distance themselves from their pursuers. After the poor performances on Saturday by Chelsea (1-1 against Crystal Palace) and especially Arsenal (1-1) in Brighton, the great leader of the ranking shared the points with Manchester United during the Derby of England scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Anfield (2-2).
The Reds are still six points ahead of the Gunners and ten ahead of the Blues, who collapsed during the festive period. Next meetings for these three “candidates” for the title: Liverpool will challenge Nottingham, the surprise 3rd, Arsenal will have to deal with their derby against Tottenham at the Emirates and Chelsea will host Bournemouth.
A Liverpool-Man United that goes wrong
Faced with the catastrophic Red Devils (who had three consecutive defeats in the league), Arne Slot’s team was less phenomenal than in recent weeks. Regrouped in front of their goal, the Mancunians finally opened the scoring after returning from the locker room with a shot under the crossbar from Lisandro Martinez (52nd). Cody Gakpo equalized following a nice move in the area and Mohamed Salah gave his team the lead from the penalty spot after a handball from Matthijs de Ligt (72nd).
Liverpool, however, gave in, unable to deal with a not very dangerous attack from Man United. Amad Diallo took a cross from Alejandro Garnacho to equalize (80th). And the historic derby of English football could have ended with the success of the visitors on a huge opportunity missed by Harry Maguire in front of the Liverpool goal in the last moments of added time (97th). United are 13th and will resume in the PL against Southampton.
