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United set for 100th Liverpool game at Anfield

Manchester United's Premier League clash at Liverpool on Sunday will be our 100th match against our fiercest rivals at Anfield.

The Reds return from the international break to take on Arne Slot's men on Merseyside, looking for a positive result on the back of the win over Sunderland last time out.

The game brings up the century of contests against Liverpool at their ground, as we seek a 27th win, in terms of the all-time figures. We have played two other matches at the venue, an FA Cup replay success over Stoke City in 1931 and a home victory over Double-winners Arsenal in the 1971/72 season due to a punishment for crowd trouble at Old Trafford.

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The first match between the two rivals at Anfield was back in 1895, when Joe Cassidy scored our first goal there, for Newton Heath, but it came in a 7-1 loss.

A maiden win was achieved in April 1907, courtesy of Sandy Turnbull's solitary strike, one of six goals the Scottish striker managed at Anfield.

It has always been a tough place to go but consecutive victories were secured in 1913 and 1914, with George Wall coming to the fore.

Ronald Burke and Stan Pearson scored in a 2-0 triumph in 1948 that heralded our first post-War win at the Merseyside ground and one cracking draw of note was the 4-4 goalfest in 1953, with Tommy Taylor grabbing an 80th-minute equaliser.

A new decade had been ushered in by the time of our next visit and suitably, Bobby Charlton struck twice in a 3-1 win. The club legend scored five times in total for United there. George Best scored his only Reds goals at Anfield in a 2-1 success in November 1967 and Denis Law also only ever netted twice for us on Liverpool's home patch to probably illustrate the difficulty posed by the fixture.

A last visit of the sixties, in 1969, yielded a brilliant 4-1 triumph but the seventies were to prove a very fallow period, incorporating a seven-game losing streak.

This Norman Whiteside belter brings Sir Alex Ferguson his first United win at Anfield.

Hence, when Gordon McQueen's effort decided a game in April 1981, it was much heralded as it marked a first win there against the hosts for 12 years.

Despite Liverpool being dominant at home and abroad in that decade, United managed to maintain a good record in this spell. Arthur Albiston's late goal snatched a 2-1 triumph in October 1981, Frank Stapleton was the matchwinner in 1985 and Norman Whiteside settled a Boxing Day affair a year later, in Alex Ferguson's first taste of the rivalry.

A fine comeback with 10 men in 1988, with Gordon Strachan levelling matters in a 3-3 draw, also lingers long in the memory.

United's first Premier League win at Anfieldvideo

After a 2-0 defeat in the previous season had ended our title dreams, the first Premier League game on Liverpool's home turf was won 2-1, thanks to goals from Mark Hughes and Brian McClair.

The nineties clashes produced some fabulous entertainment, including another 3-3 draw after we had raced into a three-goal lead, and three more wins, including one that took us to the brink of another league title in 1996/97.

After the turn of the Millennium, three wonderful wins on the spin buoyed every Reds fan. Who can forget Diego Forlan's double in 2002? John O'Shea's dramatic late winner five years later also went down in United folklore.

Yet things have been harder of late, with our last victory coming when Wayne Rooney scored his second Anfield matchwinner in 2016, 11 years after the first. 

However, the 2-2 draw last time out, when Lisandro Martinez and Amad found the net, gives cause for optimism after a 0-0 stalemate in our previous visit in December 2023.

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