Sunday's match at Anfield is the story of two managers who found themselves in completely different situations.
Arne Slot has taken over a great team with great players. Ruben Amorim has taken over a great football club with very poor players. In some ways it's that simple.
I like Lock. He is not a wannabe Jurgen Klopp. He's just been himself. He comes across as great and seems to have a nice personality. You couldn't hate him.
Slot hasn't tried to take much credit even if he deserves it because he's felt like not trying to fix something that wasn't actually broken.
He never said, “We're doing this now, we're doing something else,” trying to blow his own trumpet.
He gave us no jargon, no nonsense that we keep hearing as if the game had only just been invented.
Liverpool has coverage everywhere. They have five or six forwards who can play in each team.
They have enough leaders like Virgil van Dijk. The manager has loved everyone and allowed good players to play.
Manchester City have lost, which has been a help for them, we should not forget that. But Slot has done very well so far.
At United, Amorim has the job of all jobs after taking over a very average group of players.
They almost need a new team. There are very few who will take Manchester United where they want to be.
It will take a long time to recover, but I enjoy listening to Amorim. He knows what he wants.
Now as a manager you say to United: 'I need players who can do this, this and this'.
When I went to Portsmouth I wanted to play three at the back.
I signed Matty Taylor from Luton for £50,000. He was a left winger and left back. He was perfect for me.
Defensively he was seven out of ten, going forward he was nine out of ten.
United need to find some full-backs for Amorim. They need a centre-forward. They need players everywhere. But gaming the system isn't the problem.
It's no different for Russell Martin at Southampton when people said: 'Oh, he's dishing it out from the back'.
They could have put it on the field every time they got it, but it wouldn't make them better.
Ultimately, they are not good enough to stay in the Premier League.
United are actually quite well prepared to play Amorim's way.
But in Monday's 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle he made a big mistake by playing against two men who cannot run in the middle of the park.
Casemiro and Christian Eriksen were great footballers, but they are no longer athletes. There they were completely overrun.
But at least he has a way he wants to play. The United recruitment was shocking, but that should change now that they have a blueprint of what he needs, rather than signing players willy-nilly.
Managers are being fired, but the heads of recruitment – or whatever they're called, they all have fancy names – are hiding in the background.
They bring in bad players and managers take the blame.
United and Dan Ashworth parted ways, so now it's up to Jason Wilcox.
If Wilcox doesn't bring in good players, he needs to be in the spotlight for both the heel and the manager.
He is just as responsible for the future of Manchester United, if not more so.
The team behind the scenes at Liverpool is fantastic and I know two of them quite well.
I had Richard Hughes at Portsmouth as a player and I brought in Michael Edwards as an analyst.
They have been good friends since their time there.
Later I took Michael to Tottenham and now he is the top man at Liverpool. He really understands the game.
Richard is like a football encyclopedia. You name a player and he tells you what he's going to eat tonight. He has done a fantastic job at Bournemouth.
You think: 'Where did left back Milos Kerkez come from? Where did Antoine Semenyo come from?' They will continue to bring in good players.
And Liverpool also deserve the honor of choosing Slot as their new manager.
All I can see on Sunday is a comfortable Liverpool win.
That crowd will love to bash United and it will be a great atmosphere. There's no place like Anfield when those fans are singing.
Plymouth was the impossible task for Rooney
WHEN Wayne Rooney went to Plymouth this summer I thought: 'Wazza, you've taken on an impossible job.' And that has proven to be the case.
No disrespect to Plymouth, a great football club with huge potential, but the team is what it is: not good enough for the Championship.
They escaped on the last day of last season and were always going to scrap to stay up again.
You could have added Pep Guardiola… the players are just not good enough.
I like Wayne. If you talk to him, he's great at the game.
I hope he doesn't give up. The problem is finding a job where he has a chance to be successful.
But it won't be easy for him to get that chance now.
These days I follow Coventry's results closely because my cousin, Frank Lampard, is in charge there.
That's a tough job, but hopefully Frank can take them one step further.
It doesn't matter if you've been a great player; if you want to be a great manager, the most important thing is to have great players.
This applies just as much to Frank and Wayne as it does to Slot and Amorim.
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