BECAUSE of our need to ascribe greater meaning than wins and losses to our football, should Manchester United fall at Liverpool tomorrow night, you can be sure of the following. Someone will declare that we are in the era of intense, high-pressing football. And they will cite Manchester City, Tottenham and Liverpool as evidence, in contrast with Jose Mourinho’s more staid, positional approach.

It would be a generalisation and an over-simplification, but there’s a kernel of truth to it. The stakes really are rather high here for the Special One and they go beyond the fact that defeat would leave them six points back. In some ways, he is flying the flag for a whole footballing philosophy.

The trouble for Mourinho – and Manchester United – is that it’s tough to know how to do it. Scan his line-up and there are options everywhere, but especially in the front six, where only Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba are 100 per cent nailed on starters. But where they end up and in what formation is all to be determined. Do you play Pogba alongside two central midfielders or one? And which two (or one) do you pick out of Ander Herrera, Marouane Fellaini and Morgan Schneiderlin?

If you do only pick two central midfielders and opt for a 4-2-3-1, who’s in the hole? Juan Mata, who did well in his last outing? Henrikh Mkhitaryan, still a £40 million player, and desperate to get out of the doghouse? Wayne Rooney – yes, stranger things have happened.

It’s the same story out wide. There are two spots and Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Mata (or even Mkhitaryan) to fill them.

Mourinho’s track record suggests he is not averse to pulling something out of a hat to counter the opposition. That’s the good news. The bad news with having so many options is that there are many more things that could go wrong. And if you are continually adjusting, it becomes that much harder to build chemistry, which is something Mourinho craves.

The Special One described United’s last outing as their “best performance” of the season, despite the fact Stoke held them to a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford. United certainly had their chances, but then so did the visitors. It felt like one of those situations where managers believe that if they say something often enough and emphatically enough, their players buy into it.

Two months into the season isn’t a long time and there are plenty of mitigating factors. But at some point, he will stand or fall based on his choices – it’s unthinkable to expect him to continue rotating until he finds the right formula: it’s just not his modus operandi. A slip-up against Liverpool would only make that process that much tougher.

IN theory, Jurgen Klopp has many options as well. Indeed, last season he used more players over the course of the year than any other Premier League manager. But in fact, regardless of who makes the starting XI, with Liverpool you know what’s coming. You know what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it and it becomes a question of whether you can stop them.

When everyone is fit – and Adam Lallana and Georginio Wijnaldum will likely be okay after picking up knocks over the international break – the main question is whether Daniel Sturridge plays. Increasingly, the answer is “no”, with Roberto Firmino in a floating centre-forward role the preferred option (and the likely option tomorrow night).

“[Firmino] is what an offensive player should be... kind of selfish, but it’s not too important for him if he scores or not... if he gets an assist it’s all good,” Klopp said on Friday. “That makes him a nice team-mate.”

It’s hard to hear language like that and not see a veiled reference to Sturridge, intentional or not. It’s been a long-running theme with the Liverpool centre-forward. Of all the men at Klopp’s disposal he is the most genuine striker of the bunch and, also, the hiccuping start to his career was put down to a certain selfishness and supposed inability to follow tactical diktats.

And yet Sturridge has come a very long way. He has done what was asked of him. And you get the sense that, maybe, Klopp doesn’t want a centre-forward in that position. He wants – to use his own language – an “offensive player” like Firmino who is essentially a recycled attacking midfielder.

Either Sturridge adapts – again – or he may well end up in the impact sub role.

THE knee-jerk reaction to just about anything Fifa related ranges from awful to deranged. And, sure, decades of behaviour that was often either corrupt or silly makes it perhaps inevitable. But the conservatism with which football greets any changes to the World Cup format remains staggering.

Basically, everything is auto- matically bad. Without even being considered.

You can understand opposition to the 40-team World Cup format, which is one of those to be discussed in January. Ten groups of four, six best-placed second-place teams advancing... it makes the tournament substantially longer and fills it with dead rubbers. Fine.

But the way the 48-team version was written off makes you wonder whether some even read the proposal. It’s effectively a 32-team World Cup with the difference that 16 top qualifiers advance directly to the group stage. The other 32 have a playoff for a spot in the tournament.

Sure, it’s more games overall, but more manageable too. And, yes, it’s cruel that you can prepare for so long and then be sent home after 90 minutes, but that’s what happens now if you fall at the last hurdle during qualifying.

What about the benefits though?

More nations would be a part of it. The “play-in” games would all be exciting and worth watching, much like the knockout round. The 16 top seeds – and let’s face it, they’re the most likely winners – won’t fall victim to a bad day at the office because they go straight to the group stage. And the fundamental format would be unchanged and we know it works.

But, yeah, it’s easier to just complain about everything Fifa-related.