The tactical plan Arne Slot must follow for Liverpool to stop Man United's 'potent partnership'

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His game model tells the story of a midfielder who does the bulk of his work within Manchester United's own half, rarely venturing into attacking territory.During Monday's 3-2 win over Brentford, the Brazilian made 11 tackles, won 16 duels and made 9 clearances - a complete defensive midfield performance with a data set not seen in 20 seasons of Premier League football.But Liverpool cannot afford to be lulled into that false image of Casemiro the destroyer.Within the Premier League, the Brazilian ranks in the top 5% of creators in the division — defined by the volume of high-value passes a player produces.He doesn't need to press high to influence the game. He shapes it from deep, threading the kind of passes that could dissect Liverpool's first line of pressure before it can even engage.Liverpool, by contrast, have a Machine Football creativity score of just 34.22 as a team – a figure that reflects their identity as a side built on structure rather than invention.They move the ball accurately (91.84 for passing accuracy) and they move it quickly, but unpicking a disciplined United midfield block through creative passing may prove difficult.If this becomes a game of who controls the middle third, United have a quiet weapon that Slot's side will need an answer for.READ MORE: Liverpool cannot afford to get transfer window wrong - but there can be upsides to exitsREAD MORE: What the numbers say about Yan Diomande - Liverpool's 'unstoppable' Mohamed Salah replacementDead ball danger…and Liverpool's responseFrom set-pieces, Casemiro compounds the problem.

He ranks in the top 0.01% for headed finishing in the Premier League - again demonstrated with the opener from a corner routine in Monday's win over Brentford.It's the kind of threat that transforms routine dead balls into genuine scoring opportunities, and one Liverpool's rekindled defensive organisation at set-pieces will need to account for specifically.They do, however, have an answer. Slot and his coaching team have turned around Liverpool's set-piece fortunes from among the worst in Europe's top leagues in the first half of the seasonAnd captain Virgil van Dijk scores 96.35 for aerial finishing, placing him in the same elite bracket as Casemiro from the opposite end of the pitch.Whatever United threaten from dead balls, Slot has a player capable of matching it.Van Dijk is not simply a defensive presence at set-pieces – he is a scoring threat in his own right, as his late winner in the Merseyside derby showed a fortnight ago.The deeper problem for Liverpool: Stopping United’s most dangerous partnershipThe dead ball duel can be managed.

What is harder to neutralise is what Machine Football identifies as United's most potent connection.According to Machine Football's modelling, Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes share the joint-highest cohesion score [explained more here] in the Manchester United squad — a reading of 99, the maximum the model can register.Fernandes himself ranks in the top 0.1% of creators in the Premier League, and at 19 assists he is chasing down the joint record for a season of 20, held by Kevin De Bruyne and Thierry Henry.Two players of that profile, operating with that level of mutual understanding, represent a genuine threat to Liverpool’s back line.For Liverpool, disrupting this duo must be the priority. And the model suggests it will not be straightforward.Where Liverpool Are VulnerableLiverpool's overall cohesion score this season sits at 55 – a modest figure – and the individual connections in some areas are far worse.The left side of their structure is the most exposed: Left-back Milos Kerkez registers cohesion scores of just 34 with van Dijk and 37 with Alexis Mac Allister.If Carrick's side targets that flank in the build-up, drawing Liverpool's shape out of position before switching it to the Fernandes-Casemiro corridor, Slot's press may repeatedly arrive a touch too late.Liverpool's answer is not to out-create United.