Man Utd confirm Champions League football with win over Liverpool

Manchester United's Kobbie Mainoo celebrates scoring their side's third goal of the game. Pic: Martin Rickett/PA Wire.

Manchester United 3 Liverpool 2 

Bank holiday weekends on the red side of Manchester don't come much better than beating your fiercest rivals to book a return to the Champions League.

Kobbie Mainoo celebrated his new contract with a winning goal that threatened to take the roof off Old Trafford and ensured that the 24-hour party people took to the streets to kick-off a celebration that might even been heard at the opposite end of the East Lancs Road.

Liverpool's fans will also be glad that they don't have to go to work in the morning, but for very different reasons.

Arne Slot's side thought they had stepped back from the brink when goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo at the start of the second half wiped away the lead that United had deservedly built up during a blistering opening salvo that saw Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko both find the target.

But it was Mainoo, the local boy who looked on his way out of the club until Michael Carrick made him believe again after coming in as manager, who won a quite compelling contest when he marched on to a loose ball in the 77th minute to find the bottom corner with the sweetest of strikes from 20 yards out.

Alex Ferguson, taken to hospital as a precaution after falling ill before the game, will certainly have felt a little better when he was informed of the result.

Liverpool are just four points shy of confirming their own top-five finish. But this 12th defeat of the season was particularly painful.

This was United's first Premier League double over Liverpool in a decade.

United started with blistering intent. Three times in the opening five minutes, Liverpool were forced to defend near-post crosses from the right. Then came the opening goal.

When Bryan Mbeumo's corner was cleared to Cunha 18 yards out, his first shot was blocked by Ryan Gravenberch. But the rebound prompted the Brazilian to take another swing, this time with his left foot, and his effort clipped the hip of Alexis Mac Allister and bounced past Freddie Woodman's left hand.

Liverpool were on the canvas again in the 14th minute. United felt they should have had a penalty when Sesko went down under Curtis Jones' challenge.

But when Luke Shaw crossed from the left and Bruno Fernandes looped a far-post header back into the heart of Woodman's six-yard box, the Liverpool keeper nudged the ball against the stomach of Sesko and in it went.

Gakpo sent a curling effort from 25 yards flashing just wide, but Fernandes thought he had scored his team's third goal when he marched onto Mbeumo's cross to connect with a thumping half-volley that skidded wide.

Szoboszlai has been arguably the only Liverpool player to perform like a champion this season.

The Hungarian turned the contest on its head two minutes after the break when he intercepted substitute Diallo's wayward pass close to the half-way line before running unchallenged to the cusp of the United penalty area and steering a low shot past Senne Lammens with his left foot.

Nine minutes later, Liverpool were level when Mac Allister read Lammens' attempt to find Casemiro and duly worked the ball for Szoboszlai to invite Gakpo to ram into an open goal.

But it was Mainoo who emerged as the match-winner when Mac Allister's poor clearance fell to him on the edge of the box and his low drive found the bottom corner in a blur.