Manchester United 1 Liverpool 4: The significance of the result remains to be seen but Liverpool have certainly made the title race that little bit more interesting with their second four-goal haul of the week, this time at the home of their greatest rivals, Manchester United.
The result moves them within four points of the leaders, though Alex Ferguson’s side still have a game in hand, but Merseyside reds will be hoping the manner of the win may just upset defending champions in their pursuit of an 18th league title.
Spirits were high around Anfield after a 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid during the week but while a match at Old Trafford offered a chance to make it a great week, it also threatened to ruin the ‘feel-good’ factor.
That threat looked clear and present when Ronaldo gave United the lead from the spot after Pepe Reina clumsily upended Park Ji Sung but Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard fired the visitors back in front before halftime, and after Nemanja Vidic was dismissed for taking down the latter, Fabio Aurelio and Andrea Dossena sealed the win.
“The important thing is that we have made the gap smaller. We realise that Manchester United are a fantastic team and there’s still a lot of work to do,” Gerrard told Sky Sports afterwards.
“We’ll need a little bit of luck along the way but hopefully that gives teams that are going to play against Manchester United a bit of belief that they can be beaten. And hopefully it will give us a lot of confidence to go on and win as many games as we can.
“It was magnificent, a great team performance. From front to back we worked very hard today, showed great character after going a goal down and it was a magnificent win.
“In the end it was comfortable with a man being sent off, but I think we were men today, we controlled the game. It’s not very often you see Manchester United getting beat 4-1 at home.”
It represented Liverpool’s biggest win at United since 1936. There appeared an extra sharpness about them from the start, especially Torres who gave the Red Devils defence a torrid time.
Once Jamie Carragher had recovered his composure after being unsettled by a late switch to right-back because of Alvaro Arbeloa’s withdrawal, they had the edge in vital areas, the hosts no better than their nervy first-half display against Inter Milan in midweek.
Indeed, it was a surprise when United went ahead.
Reina read Carlos Tevez’s through ball for Park well enough but came out too quickly for his own good. When the South Korean nicked the ball away, the Liverpool keeper could not stop. Referee Alan Wiley correctly pointed to the spot.
Ronaldo is not the type of player to waste such opportunities and duly dispatched his 17th goal of the season.
Had Alex Ferguson’s men been able to hold their advantage for a decent length of time, the visitors might have panicked. But five minutes later Liverpool were level thanks to a rare mistake from Vidic.
The Serbian has been virtually perfect this season, so much so that he is favourite to win the PFA player of the year award.
But he let Martin Skrtel’s long punt forward bounce when he could have headed it back into the Liverpool half and then failed to deal with the loose ball, allowing Torres to nip in and streak clear, beating Edwin van der Sar with clinical efficiency.
Before half-time Liverpool had scored again.
Torres tried to send Gerrard racing into the box and Patrice Evra mis-timed his tackle, the Liverpool skipper converted his penalty with the same confidence Ronaldo had shown earlier.
Liverpool’s lead was fully deserved, condemning Ferguson to his first interval rallying call in league combat at Old Trafford all season.
The Scot injected a greater sense of urgency into his team, even if there was no improvement in their retention of the ball.
Carrick in particular was having a pretty bad day, twice putting his side in danger with wayward passes.
United, at least, managed to generate some momentum, with Tevez almost getting on the end of a Wayne Rooney knock-back and then rolling a shot on the turn just wide.
Having expressed his ‘hatred’ of Liverpool earlier in the week, the last thing Rooney wanted was to suffer an immediate defeat and a chance for Gerrard — a long-time friend — to gloat.
Ferguson waited until the 70th minute before bringing on Dimitar Berbatov, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.
It is the kind of strength Benitez does not have and one of the major reasons why Liverpool have found themselves on the wrong end of a 14-point swing in fortunes since United returned from their Club World Cup campaign in Japan just before Christmas.
What Liverpool have managed to do this season is beat Chelsea and United, against both of whom they have now registered ‘doubles’.
Any hope United had, evaporated within a minute of Ferguson’s triple substitution as another woeful first touch, again from Vidic, left the Serbian little alternative other than to haul down Gerrard.
For the second successive game against Liverpool, it brought Vidic a red card and he was still making his way down the tunnel when Aurelio curled home a superb free-kick.
And Liverpool were not finished as Dossena lobbed Van der Sar to complete a memorable win, the significance of which remains unknown.
