Erik ten Hag can use lessons learnt in Manchester United friendly win vs Liverpool to launch season

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Plenty can change over the course of a few days in football, so five weeks can feel like five months in comparison.

That's certainly the feeling around Manchester United right now. Back on July 12, there was boundless optimism after Erik ten Hag's first game in charge of the club.

There are few better ways to introduce yourself than by masterminding a 4-0 win over your fiercest of rivals, just as the Dutchman did in his maiden outing against Liverpool. But fast-forward a little over a month and the bubble has well and truly burst. A crushing defeat to Brentford - by the same 4-0 scoreline - left United licking their wounds at the bottom of the Premier League table without a point to their name.

Read more: Liverpool handed double boost ahead of Old Trafford trip

And so they now face a meeting with their old foes once again. Despite the fact that the aforementioned clash with Liverpool was effectively a bounce game, United can still take some valuable lessons from the pasting they dished out that day in Bangkok.

The manner of their play, with zipped passing and an eagerness to impress, will be needed on Monday if they are to stand a chance of racking up their first Premier League win since beating Brentford in the latter stages of last term.

They were 3-0 up inside the first 45 minutes in that glamour warm-up game and the fact they scored four times from just five shots on target in the entire game says it all. That level of efficiency has clearly been lacking in their opening two Premier League games with their only goal coming via the aid of an own goal.

Ahead of such an important clash, even at this early juncture of the campaign, United would do well to replay the DVD of that Thailand clash to remind themselves just