Man United and Liverpool are braced for a new era in their great rivalry
There have been moments in the rich history of collisions between Manchester United and Liverpool when grace under pressure from a promising young talent was all it took to prevail.
It was 52 years ago this week that a teenaged Phil Thompson made his debut for Bill Shankly's Liverpool at Old Trafford and almost immediately found George Best running towards him. 'I showed him towards nutmegging me and he went for it, but I managed to close my skinny legs in time. It bounced off my shins and I ran away with the ball,' Thompson relates. 'The great George Best. And I'd got the ball!'
Not bad for a substitute who had come on for John Toshack in an unaccustomed No 10 role. It was the kind of self-confidence Shankly imbued in his players. United, struggling under Frank O'Farrell after Sir Matt Busby stepped away, also fielded Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, yet still lost 3-0.
It is not an entirely dissimilar dynamic on Sunday. United, still deeply flawed and utterly unpredictable, 11 years on from the end of Sir Alex Ferguson's dynasty, face a Liverpool jet propelled by the spirit of Jurgen Klopp, for a couple more months at least.
The teams meet two months after new United shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe declared his wish to knock Liverpool 'our other neighbour', as he described them - 'off their perch', along with Manchester City. On the evidence of the lucky draw at Brentford and desperate defeat at Chelsea in the past week, this will take a considerable time.
Ratcliffe's immediate pursuit of Dan Ashworth as sporting director underlines the fact that he considered poor player recruitment to be at the heart of United's problems, with Jason Wilcox now identified as technical director.
But finding the manager to lead the squad won't
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