Monster mauling by Scousers

El Nino leaves Vida biting the dust

Awful. Shameful. Shocking. These are some of the words that were going through the minds of the home crowd at Old Trafford. The Scousers ran riot, not at Anfield but right at the heart of the Theatre of Dreams. At the start of the match, there were some questions raised on Fergie's selection, particularly his decision to field Anderson in favour of the more experienced Scholes and putting Tevez as the strike partner of Rooney ahead of Berbatov. I would have thought that Giggs should play a part too considering that his set pieces from corners would be a tremendous asset, like how they worked against Chelski.

United were awarded a soft penalty when Park Ji Sung came tumbling down after Pepe had failed to pull the breaks in time. From the referee's view, it looked like a deliberate pounce on the man but from the front camera view, Pepe could be seen trying to desperately stop from clashing. Anyways, there was a feeling of "Here we go again!" when United took the lead with Ronaldo scoring the penalty. It was also felt at that time that Liverpool will be facing a remainder hellish 67 minutes on the field. Winning is an absolute must for them and a draw will not be sufficient. It was that kind of pressure coupled with the fact that they are already 0-1 down and having to face the hostile crowd at Old Trafford.

Just 5 minutes afterthat, Torres provided an equaliser to mark the start of the floodgates. The nature of the equaliser is a horrific mistake from Vidic. Skrtel pumped a long ball into the United half and Vidic could have easily head it back, but nope...he let it bounce once and Torres, lurking dangerously near him, took the opportunity to snatch the ball to go one on one with Van der Sar. I had to admit that that was some brilliant individual skill. Vidic stumbled embarassingly after failing to catch hold of Torres. Oh man, when you have a clinical marksman like Torres going 1 v 1, he's gonna bloody well score, unlike United's no. 32. The thing is never ever let someone like Torres have the space to waltz alone and Vidic obviously had a pawned face like Philip Lahm as a result. Ok..fine..they have equalised but a 1-1 draw is fine too.

Just a minute before half time, it was Patrice's time to be the baddie as he brought down Gerrard in the penalty box. Gosh, I think that Patrice should have just let him go coz he might not have scored in the first place. Gerrard duly delivered the penalty and afterthat he actually ran and kissed the camera at the corner flag! So, Liverpool went to the dressing room at half time, taking a 2-1 lead. That's fine too, because with the firepower that United have, getting a 2-2 draw would be sufficient to cause a setback for Liverpool. I would imagine Fergie blasting his blur defenders to wake up their ideas and for the attackers to take more initiative. Apparently, whatever grandfatherly hairdressing that Fergie had given, it didn't work. By the 75th minute, time is running out for United and everyone in the squad is running out of ideas. Fergie's desperation for the equaliser can be seen as he subbed in all three attackers - Giggs, Scholes and Berbatov.

It was another woeful moment for "man of the match" Vidic as he hacked down Gerrard to earn himself another straight red in a Liverpool fixture. (previously, he got the same straight red at the previous match at Anfield). Aurelio steps up to take the free kick, and this time, it was Van der Sar's turned to get pawned. Oh man, he just stood there like a pole stick when Aurelio bend in the free kick. So did the United wall standing still there. 3-1 down, 1 man down, less than 15 minutes left..it's as good as packing the bags and heading to the showers unless of course Liverpool can do an Arsenal in conceding 2 in the last 90 minutes of a derby..haha. By then, any sort of motivation of mounting back an equaliser would have been evaporated. It's not a familiar situation for the United squad as they have not been subjected to a league game loss for months already. The final blow of humiliation was slammed into United when Dossena lobbed one over van der Sar to make it a quadruple comeback. This 4th goal was very similar in nature to the first goal, in that Liverpool had caught United with their tails behind their back. 1-4 the final score..and this is probably one of the worst disasters that had occured on Old Trafford soil.

This is very bizarre and strange. Man Utd also took the lead in Anfield before losing. They lost Vida to red cards on both occassions. And I really can't understand how a team which has trouble scoring against the likes of Stoke City on two occasions, drawing with Hull City and losing to teams like Middlesbrough could bang in four away goals against their fiercest rival. You have to commend them though, for smashing 4-0 against Real Madrid and repeating another four goals against another titanic team. Football is a funny game, where 2+2 don't neccessary equals to 4. Every legendary player has his bad day. For Vidic, it's a bad day coming at the wrong time. He hardly made a single mistake for this whole season, and all of them had to compound as one on that day. Those kind of mistakes, if they were made by Ferdinand, would have been more believable..haha.

[Man Utd Fanatic Mode On] No sweat that Liverpool has won this. Liverpool pose little threat in the title race. They always screw up in the future and in the end. I need not repeat names like Hull City and Wigan. The chances of them screwing up is 1001% on every match they play. This is merely an anomalous defeat, a small blip in a string of excellent results and we're still top, 4 points ahead with a game in hand! We'll see the Scousers at the party celebration at Old Trafford at the end of the season!

Ok..fanatic mode off now but mathematically, United could still lead by as much as 7 points provided if they win their extra match. The most important thing now is that the squad shrug off this defeat and concentrating on a new set of winning run again. The road to title retention will depend on how well they response from this defeat. Hopefully, it won't be like 2003 where after losing to Wolves, United went down from top spot to a spiralling set of results that caused them to finish 3rd instead. In any case, this will be a result to forget for United fans. And it would well go into the history books as one of the most embarassing results for Man Utd.