Fans protest against Glazers before Manchester United v Liverpool – live updates!

Manchester United: Henderson; Wan-Bissaka, Bailly, Lindelof, Shaw; McTominay, Fred; Rashford, Fernandes, Pogba; Cavani. Subs: De Gea, Tuanzebe, Williams, Telles, Amad, Mata, Matic, Van de Beek, Greenwood.

Liverpool: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, R Williams, Phillips, Robertson; Thiago, Fabinho, Wijnaldum; Jota, Firmino, Salah. Subs: Adrian, Kelleher, Mane, Jones, Tsimikas, Shaqiri, Origi, Woodburn, N Williams.

Ten changes for United after their mass rotation against Leicester, a mere two days ago, that even Jurgen Klopp had to agree with. Sadio Mane is on the bench for Liverpool.

Actual footballer Diogo Jota speaks words: “We said we need to do our job to think about getting a Champions League spot. We need other teams to drop points but we still need to do our job today. It’s really important for us and for the season, and for next season as well. We need to play to win, do our best and take our chances.”

Hello. So we do have a game, it appears. As Michael has told you, there are pitch walks being … errm … walked and match preparations being made. The protests will continue outside Old Trafford, as far as we can tell – some reports say it’s still peaceful but starting to assume a little bit of an edge now that the game is taking place after all.

As things stand, we’re still heading for a 8.15pm BST kick-off, although it would not be a surprise to see the kick-off delayed. I’m going to hand over now to Nick Ames, who will cover the rest of the build-up and the match itself. Cheers!

Sadio Mané is walking the Old Trafford pitch with Shaqiri in his training gear. They both look fairly relaxed.

It looks like we are going to have a game, then, and that the red Liverpool bus was a decoy. There are pictures of Liverpool players entering the dressing rooms.

Not ideal for the Liverpool players, who have just over one hour to prepare for one of their biggest games of their league season. But some things are bigger than one match.

The large crowd outside the East Stand has dissipated. The fans have marched around the other side of the stadium, and there are now more police than supporters.

Roy Keane on Sky Sports:

Manchester United fans are not done with this, we saw some protests a few weeks ago, but I think there is still a lot to come. The concern is that when the fans can come back to the stadium, you could have 70,000 fans showing up at Old Trafford, frustrated with what happened. Things can get much worse.”

Graeme Souness, meanwhile, is talking absolute gibberish. He seems to be a very confused man, and seems to hold a strange reverence for the Glazer family. Incoherent ramblings by a man who doesn’t seem to understand what the fans are actually protesting. “They are powerful people” he says of the Manchester United owners.

The Manchester Evening News is reporting that the Manchester United players drove themselves to the stadium and that two team buses did dummy runs between their own hotel and the stadium in a bid to throw off protesters.

We are not entirely sure where the Liverpool team is, and if they are in the Liverpool bus. The hotel they were staying at is about two miles from Old Trafford.

Manchester United players and staff are already safely inside the stadium. They arrived at Old Trafford earlier.

It is worth noting that all the protests appear to be peaceful.

Some Manchester United fans are chanting “we’re going on the pitch again” outside Old Trafford.

Alex Mistlin is one of our reporters who is outside Old Trafford. How exactly the Liverpool (or Manchester United) bus will be able to approach the stadium remains uncertain. There are already a significant number of people outside and one imagines there will be more disruption.

The Liverpool bus is moving again, and the large police presence does suggest that the Liverpool team is inside.

It is not clear whether the poodle is part of the protests.

Do we have a game today? It remains unclear. Following on from the protests which caused this fixture to be postponed earlier this month, Manchester United fans are again protesting outside Old Trafford and beyond.

Anger remains over the European Super League involvement although the majority of the ire remains towards the club’s owners, the Glazer family.

Manchester United fans have blocked a Liverpool bus en route to Old Trafford, with the bus’ tyres reportedly being let down. It is unclear whether the Liverpool team is inside the bus, but police are now on the scene attempting to disperse the protesters.

If the game does go ahead, it’s a particularly huge one for Liverpool. If they win they will go fifth, four points behind Chelsea and with a game in hand. If they don’t, their top-four hopes recede significantly and that’d count as a big disappointment in the final analysis.