Manchester United made hard work of their Champions League game against Atalanta. Very hard work.

Two-nil down after half an hour at Old Trafford, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team looked extremely vulnerable to the Italian side’s attacks.

While it’s also fair to say United created plenty of chances throughout the game, and even in the first half to get themselves back into the match by half-time, they relied on moments of brilliance to turn the game around, rather than due to any structural implementation from Solskjaer.

Moreover, this was essentially Atalanta’s B side, with La Dea missing up to five key players before the game, and then central defender Merih Demiral going off at half-time with a hamstring injury adding more yet salt to the wound.

Even then, Atalanta had two chances to extend their lead through Duvan Zapata and Ruslan Malinovskyi. Had one of those gone in, the game likely would’ve went their way, but David de Gea made two terrific saves to keep United alive.

It was the moment that the momentum of the game swung in their favour.

After the game, amidst the jubilation at having turned the game around in the dying moments, Paul Scholes cut a forlorn figure in the BT Sport studio.

"Can they play against Liverpool like that? Never in a million years," he said in a frank assessment of United’s performance. "It's a great night and Cristiano [Ronaldo] is the big hero, but the first half was a real worry for me.

"You celebrate every win, but the first half really worried me. People are going to say I'm miserable and I'll maybe be slagged off by some United fans, but I looked at that game thinking about the Liverpool game. That first half United had two midfielders playing on their own and if they do that against Liverpool and [Manchester] City they'll be four down by half-time.

"Go and do that on Sunday and see what happens. Jürgen Klopp will be rubbing his hands together."

Scholes is spot on. Liverpool are not Atalanta. Liverpool are, in a way, a much more powerful and expensive version of Atalanta. Klopp’s system is all about the collective, but with better individual players that are capable of making the difference when things aren’t working.

United, by contrast, are merely a team comprised of high-class individuals who don’t function as a team (or anything even resembling one), but who squeeze through games due to moments of brilliance, like we saw from Ronaldo for the winner.

Solskjaer picked a 4-2-4 formation for the Atalanta match, and should he implement the same system against Liverpool, it would be nothing short of disastrous for United in Sunday’s game. Just imagine Mohamed Salah, on current form, against that beleaguered defence, or the space Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander Arnold could exploit down each flank like Atalanta did through Davide Zappacosta and Joakim Mæhle.

Solskjaer needs to change things up ahead of the clash with Liverpool; there’s simply no way he can instruct his team to be so gung-ho and so attacking, otherwise they will simply be picked apart.

Liverpool’s biggest rivals are at such a disadvantage compared to the other sides in the top four. Solskjaer is not close to the standard of manager that’s now needed in the modern age. Thomas Tuchel, Pep Guardiola and Klopp are amongst the finest in the world, it would be extremely generous to label Solskjaer amongst the top 10 in England.

Atalanta, like Leicester before them, ruthlessly exposed the flaws in his system. If he gives Liverpool the same opportunities on Sunday, it could be his final game in charge.