Ex-Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher predicts that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s attacking style of play could make it an open game when United face their Merseyside rivals on Sunday.

The TV pundit expects the clash to be a lot different to meetings over the past few seasons, which have seen previous manager Jose Mourinho set up the Red Devils far more defensively:

“The way they are setting up now, they’re really attacking, on the front foot, exciting to watch. Maybe that will give Liverpool more chance in terms of space at Old Trafford.”

“Whenever Mourinho’s teams played against Liverpool at Old Trafford there was very little space for Mane and Salah, they always found it really difficult in the last couple of years. So maybe that might change, maybe a more open game.”

No doubt, it will be a high-intensity game. Solskjaer and his coaching staff will be looking to exploit Liverpool on the counter-attack at every opportunity.

The effectiveness of such an approach will likely depend on the fitness of Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard. Both suffered injuries in the defeat to Paris Saint-Germain last week and are touch and go for the weekend.

Even without them though, United showed against Chelsea on Monday that they can exploit a team’s defensive vulnerabilities with incisive attacking football.

Without Dejan Lovren and Joe Gomez, Joel Matip will play alongside Virgil van Dijk on Sunday. Solskjaer will likely aim to use Marcus Rashford on the left-hand-side to exploit the Cameroon defender, along with the inexperienced Trent Alexander-Arnold.