Liverpool 1-2 Man United: Arne Slot's claim backed up by statistics, and it worked a treat for the Red Devils at Anfield

Manchester United's 'long-ball tactics' worked a treat in Sunday's Premier League clash against Liverpool, with the statistics showing that the Red Devils actively looked to beat the home side's press.

Harry Maguire headed a late winner for Man United at Anfield, with the Englishman on the scoresheet after Liverpool's Cody Gakpo had cancelled out an early opener from Bryan Mbeumo.

After the match, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot said that Man United were "playing a lot of long balls" during the Premier League clash.

"If you play United - who come here with a low block and playing a lot of long balls and you know that is going to be difficult as it's not easy to play through them and you don't get the chance to win the ball high up - and you concede after one or two minutes, it makes it harder," Slot told Sky Sports News after the match.

"It's always difficult to defend against a team that defends in a low block, that mainly plays long balls. But it makes it even more difficult when you go 1-0 down after one minute when a player of ours is on the floor.

"If you would have told me before the game that against the low block, against the team that plays so many long balls, we would have created as many chances as we did, I would not have expected us to lose this game of football."

Man United's 'long-ball tactics' caused Liverpool problems in Premier League affair

According to Opta, 75 of Man United's 294 passes against Liverpool were long passes (25.5%), which was their highest ratio in a Premier League match since December 2017 against Arsenal (27.9%).

A long pass is any pass that travels further than 32 metres or is launched, and Man United were successful with 18 of those, giving them a 24% accuracy.

Man United's first goal of the afternoon came from a long pass forward, with Virgil van Dijk coming out to deal with a high ball, which led to his teammate Alexis Mac Allister picking up an injury.

Mbeumo, who had challenged Van Dijk, then managed to run off the Netherlands international before finding the back of the net following an excellent pass from Amad Diallo.

Man United's second of the match was also a cross into the box, with Bruno Fernandes' brilliant delivery being headed into the back of the net by Maguire.

Why did Benjamin Sesko not start against Liverpool?

It was interesting that Man United went with that tactic and did not use 6ft 5in centre-forward Benjamin Sesko from the start, with the striker instead introduced in the second period.

Sesko had scored in his two previous Premier League games against Brentford and Sunderland, but head coach Ruben Amorim instead selected Matheus Cunha through the middle.

"Especially in the bad moments, you have to go with your guts and I always go by that, no matter what," said Amorim in his post-match press conference when asked about Sesko.

"I think it's the most important thing for the manager, right or wrong sometimes, but that is, for me, the key point of being a manager.

"And then sometimes you have a player in the good moment, but the characteristic of the game is not for him, so it's better to go with a player and understand that is not for him and then take him out to the game.

"Sometimes the characteristics of the game change the way you are going to approach the game. So I think for example, [Matheus] Cunha, in the middle, if we put Ben [Sesko], I think it's easier for this kind of centre-backs to control our striker.

"So we try to do that, but when you win is so smart, the coach, is amazing, and then when you lose, it is something wrong with the manager. I understand that. That's why I'm going always what I think is the best for the team."

Sesko will be hoping to come back into the Man United team when the Red Devils resume their 2025-26 Premier League campaign at home to Brighton & Hove Albion in Saturday's late start.