Luis Garcia admits surprise after Man United beat Liverpool but disputes 'mistakes' claim

Liverpool's pre-season tour did not get off to a good start on Tuesday afternoon after losing by four goals to Manchester United

Tom Cavilla and Stephen Killen Senior Football Writer

16:29, 13 Jul 2022Updated 16:29, 13 Jul 2022

A 4-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester United was far from the ideal start to pre-season for Liverpool.

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Jurgen Klopp's side could not find a way past their bitter rivals in Thailand, in a match which saw the Reds field three separate 30-minute outfield teams. For United, it marked a new chapter for recently-appointed manager Erik ten Hag in his first match in charge.

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Opportunities were handed to Academy prospects such as Bobby Clark, Isaac Mabaya, Luke Chambers and Melkamu Frauendorf, meanwhile United opted for a near full-strength starting-eleven before making a total of 10 changes after the break.

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Few could have predicted such a scoreline, particularly given Liverpool inflicted the very same result on the Red Devils back in April, and former Reds forward Luis Garcia was certainly left in shock over the eventual outcome of the contest.

"I was surprised (by the result)," the 2005 Champions League winner told ESPN. "I knew that they [Man Utd] were going to be sharper than the Liverpool players because they started a week ago and got those ten days extra, but they were very well-organised.

"The pressing that Ten Hag has put on: you can see there is a connection, you can see what the manager wants. Even though he (Jurgen Klopp) talks about mistakes, there were no massive mistakes; Liverpool did a good job when they had the ball in the second part of the game."

On the difference in the initial starting-elevens selected by both sides, Garcia added: "We can’t forget that these players [Man Utd] have been training for a week or so, they started with a very strong eleven with Martial up front and there was a lot of movement between Sancho, Rashford and Fernandes. At the end, you could see every position was taken by one of them.

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"I think Ten Hag loves to have that, we saw when he was the manager of Ajax a lot of movement. Position-wise, they like to keep the ball and Fred did fantastic in the middle of the park trying to give balance to the team.

"At the end it was 4-0, it could’ve been 4-3 or 7-2 because there were so many chances for both sides but it was United who got the trophy."

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