They slunk out of the Champions League in midweek, not even making the Europa League, with the fallen giants arguably at their lowest ebb in the decade since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. United fans fear the fresh misery Jurgen Klopp’s Premier League leaders could inflict on their team this weekend, with Ten Hag revealing he has not made his players revisit last season’s debacle.

“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” said Ten Hag. “It was last season, it was the past. What we can change is the future. Sunday is a new game.

 

“I haven’t seen last season that we were scared there. It was a bad experience but it’s not similar – you start again.

“Last season, in the first-half, I think we played decently. But we got hammered just after half-time and then we collapsed. That can’t happen.

“We will not ignore it but we will go there and we will be confident, to go there and be confident from the start to the end. We have to fight there, we have to challenge there and we go there to win.

“Everyone is highly motivated when you go to Anfield. It’s a great place to go. You know it’s going be tough and what every top footballer wants is to have that challenge, so you have to look forward to it.

Manchester United were embarrassed at the home of their fierce rivals earlier this year ( Image: PA)

“Last season, of course, we take that in our memory, but you have to also take the benefit from it and learn from it and on Sunday we can prove that.”

Ten Hag’s stirring rhetoric was admirable, yet there was little else he could do other than talk up his side’s chances. But with up to 11 players out, United will do well to avoid another annihilation tomorrow, which would leave Ten Hag fighting for his job.

Even if United had missing players back – including skipper Bruno Fernandes, Casemiro, Christian Eriksen, Anthony Martial and Mason Mount – there is no reason to suggest they would improve United’s chances of a respectable result, given their poor form this season.

Ten Hag was asked if the expectations at United were too much for him, as they have been for all of his predecessors in the post-Ferguson era. It was suggested to Ten Hag that, compared to his former club Ajax, the challenge of United had proved too “complex” for him to handle.

Erik ten Hag is hoping for a vastly different experience to his last Anfield trip

“It’s similar, it’s not complex,” said Ten Hag. “At Ajax, you have to win, here you have to win, definitely. That is always the demand.

“You can never run away from those demands and I don’t run away from that. That’s our obligation – to win every game. You have to be top of the bill at any moment.”

At the moment, United are nowhere near top of the bill. They are the undercard, with everyone rubber-necking in their direction as their crisis deepens.