Largely I'm happy with that game and the performances in it. It has been a long time since I've gone into a match worried about what the opposition can do to us but a combination of what this match means to me, Liverpool's free-scoring form, the fact the game was at Anfield and their results against top sides so far this season had me worried. Turns out we didn't need to worry though.

Mourinho's gameplan might not have been pretty but it was actually largely incredible to watch them reduced down to one long-shot (amazing shot as it was) and one weird box scramble by Can and the first 35 minutes of the game I don't think I've seen us harass an opponent that much.

If Ibra had actually managed to score that header (talk more about that in a bit) then I think they would have got more energy from that and gone on to shut up shop and hold on for the 1-0 win but as it stands I'll happily take a point at Anfield given all the factors.

The actual gameplan itself seemed simple enough but it worked very well:

Firstly, we pushed up very high for a lot of the first half. We tried to remove the space which meant they either had to play over the top (which is fine for Valencia, Bailly and Smalling) or they had to have inch perfect passing through a midfield that we packed out. Young and Rashford stayed up the field on Clyne and Milner and this seemed to do two things:

1) It stopped Karius from being able to play out from the back to them (and Pogba and Ibra largely tried to cut off the other avenues) which meant they had to either be risky or just go long. If they went long we inevitably won it back through Smalling, Bailly (who was phenomenal again) or Fellaini.

2) It pinned them back and didn't give them the freedom to push on up field which meant that Mane either had to try and pick up the ball wide (where he was instantly shut out by Blind) or come inside (where he was instantly shut out by Fellaini and Herrera).

So they ended up having no real avenues to attack through and a midfield of Can and Henderson is never going to have the guile to beat this kind of structure.

This worked for most of the first half until they started to tire in the last 10 minutes which gave Liverpool more space to start working in but even then the defence was good enough to restrict them to creating absolutely nothing.

Second half started much the same and lasted until the 60th minute when Lallana came on when it all changed.

From the 60th minute onwards I'd accept the negative football accusations from people as we just shut up shop and decided to get out of there with a point but before that we were largely the better team and it was only a poor performance from Ibrahimovic that didn't allow us to make more of it.

Whenever we won the ball back we were looking for him or Pogba. Pogba always had one of Henderson or Can around him (or both sometimes) and although this meant Herrera and Fellaini ended up with acres of room in the centre of the park, it meant Pogba had no space to do anything. I think they largely negated him well.

Ibrahimovic was poor though. Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect him to take everyone on and smash one into the top corner but I expected him to at least make a few of the passes into his feet stick. His touch, passing and (when the opportunity came) his finishing was poor and this massively effected the United gameplan and his poor hold-up play didn't give them time to transition effectively.

Also another thing I'm disappointed in is how easy we made Karius's life. He looked so nervous during the game and made a series of errors when under little pressure (I think the best thing he did in the whole game was dealing with Rashford's cross along the ground into the box when he scooped it away from the penalty area and out for a throw in) and I cannot believe we didn't target him more when we had the ball. Too often the ball wasn't going into the box and was being passed around. It should have been a case of if you have half a chance of getting a cross in, go for it.

Overall though I'm fine with the result. I'd have been much happier had we gotten the 3 points against Stoke but those games happen and I'm not sure you can ever argue against a point at Anfield. We got completely out-tacticed in the match against City in the first half but I'm not sure you can acccuse us of that this game.

To end on a more positive note though, some amazing defensive performances last night. The entire back four was effectively one massive rock and Valencia and Bailly especially were impressive but the midfield of Fellaini and Herrera were just brilliant at winning the ball back and recycling it.