Good evening from a beautifully sunny Bramall Lane
for a fixture between two clubs who could well be forgiven
for yearning for the warm glow of last season.
The champions 33 points worse off than at the same stage last year
and this time, rather than being involved in a title race,
they are involved in a battle just to reach the top four.
It's Nat Phillips and Ozan Kabak,
they become Liverpool's 18th centre-back pairing of this extraordinary season.
The midfield is Thiago, Curtis Jones and Gini Wijnaldum,
who profited from a Dean Henderson error to score the only goal in this fixture last season.
The front three, Sadio Mane alongside Roberto Firmino,
and Mohamed Salah, who's scored in five of the last six away games
for Liverpool in all competitions.
CHEERING
This is only one win, and I guess that's the key between now and the end of the season,
getting a little run where you win four or five in a row.
Yeah, that's what we have to do if we want to
make Champions League and finish top four,
we have to put a run together and hope that the teams above us slip,
but we can only control our own performances,
so we have to do it game by game,
give everything and try to win the games.
The first goal is the perfect example of the difference between other games and tonight.
Whatever happens, we will give our everything until the final whistle,
but little margins make the difference, we kept the ball in play and finished it off,
and I think the whole Sheffield United team
shouted that the ball was out and stopped playing.
You think it must be out, because they stopped playing, but it wasn't out.
That moment made the difference, and that's really good and very important.
Just finally, you may or may not be aware that 20 years ago today
you took charge of your first ever game as a manager.
I mentioned it today in the team meeting.
I think it was the same time even; 8:15 German time, 7:15 English time.
We won that game only 1-0, 2-0 tonight, so it's better!
In that case - happy anniversary. Thank you.