MAN UNITED...0 LIVERPOOL...1: Gerard Houllier has been vilified so many times this season perhaps it should come as no surprise that when the good days come he can be as schmaltzy as an Oscar winner. "I'd like to dedicate this to the fans," he gushed on Saturday. All that was missing was for him to produce a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and start dabbing his eye with a hankie.

Houllier was entitled to be emotional on several fronts. There is nothing a Liverpool fan loves more than beating Manchester United, so winning at Old Trafford will have done much to suppress the seemingly endless line of disgruntled Merseysiders who ritually voice their aversion to Houllier on the nation's radio phone-ins - not always, it has to be said, a medium for the most reasoned critic.

This was theoretically the hardest match of Liverpool's run-in so Houllier must also be encouraged that, despite Newcastle's game in hand and Aston Villa's burst of form, his players appear tuned in to the challenge of achieving fourth position and, by reaching the Champions League qualifiers, salvaging some pride from a rudderless season.

As if this was not enough to re-invigorate Houllier's self-belief there was the knowledge he had the outstanding player on the pitch.

Steven Gerrard did not quite reach his most exhilarating peaks but he was still the most impressive player in central midfield, eclipsing Roy Keane who looked sluggish and, quite frankly, fed up.

Like every good acceptance speech, Houllier's included a touching tribute to his personnel and leading man. He spoke of Gerrard "leading by example" while, perhaps for the first time in their 11-year association, Ferguson hinted at dissatisfaction with Keane.

Every time Keane has a substandard match some are all too quick to dance on his grave without checking his coffin has been properly nailed down. Time and again he has defied his critics.

On this occasion, however, he looked so ordinary in the Mancunian sunshine it is easy to see why Ferguson is so opposed to his captain adding international football to an already congested schedule. "I'll be having a chat with him before I leave the ground," muttered Ferguson darkly.

What must really have disappointed the Manchester United manager was the failure of his players at any stage to emphasise exactly why Houllier's team have been cut so brutally adrift from the Premiership's leading trio this season.

Liverpool may have won, and deservedly so, but they seldom gave the impression of being anything other than an uninspiring side, playing with the sort of rigid and methodical build-up that made this a largely forgettable match.

Yet to Ferguson's intense irritation, once Gerrard had coaxed Gary Neville into giving away the penalty from which Danny Murphy scored the decisive goal, United never troubled Jerzy Dudek in the visitors' goal apart from an all-too brief five-minute flurry.

In that time Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Louis Saha squandered chances and Ryan Giggs blazed a shot past the goalkeeper only for it to hit one post, ricochet on to the other and bounce away from goal.

"Apart from that we were in control of their attacking play," said Houllier of United's brief ascendancy. "You could see how it affected their team not being with Ruud van Nistelrooy."

An obligatory mention was due for Sami Hyypia and the tactically astute Murphy before Houllier promised that if his most important players avoided injuries next season there would be nothing like the gulf that has appeared between them and Arsenal.

Perhaps. It was hard to get in any way excited about this Liverpool team, bearing in mind they had just contributed to such a thoroughly undistinguished match, one in which Michael Owen and Harry Kewell were disappointing to say the least and, in the Australian's case, apparently disinterested also.

By way of explanation for their current league standing Houllier made several references to the four months when Owen was injured but there are more far-reaching reasons to explain why they have endured what he described as a "tough and difficult season" and one good result will not fumigate the corridors of Anfield from the strong whiff of disenchantment just yet.

Houllier's team have now won three times in the last four seasons at Old Trafford but for him the most telling statistic is that, were Thierry Henry's goals for Arsenal expunged from the record, the Highbury club would still be eight points clear of Liverpool.