The shared dilemma tied to Slot and Amorim's futures

The rival managers aim to find balance at Anfield tomorrow after early-season turbulence, with the champions looking to snap a three-game losing streak

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It is Liverpool against Manchester United and a manager is on a historically bad run.

Not Ruben Amorim, either, who has equalled his longest winning sequence in the Premier League as United head coach (admittedly, that is only one victory). But Arne Slot has suffered three successive defeats for the first time; in his managerial career, not merely in his reign on Merseyside.

They have been counterparts and opposites, the men in charge of England's two biggest clubs, appointed within a few months of each other, when there was a scenario whereby Amorim could have got what is instead Slot's job, after comparable records in their homelands.

Each took a club that was somewhat starved of success in the previous two decades and feeling very much the third force in their respective countries, to the title, along with making a greater impact in continental competition. It marked each out as a rising star, attracting Premier League attention.

And there, perhaps, the similarities end, their paths diverging. Slot has won the Premier League, just the second time in 35 years Liverpool ended the season top. Amorim has come 15th, United's lowest finish for half a century.

Despite recent losses to Crystal Palace and Chelsea, Slot still averages 2.20 points per game in the division, more than double Amorim's 1.09. The Dutchman took more points in his first 16 topflight matches in England than the Portuguese has in his entire tenure. But, of course, Slot had the far more enviable inheritance.