Liverpool and Manchester United at the Old Trafford: The game that saw Dimitar Berbatov display a class act and leaving Alex Ferguson, iSporter Chirag Mansukhani and a million other fans of the sport full of praise for this one man who made all the difference. Read on to know more about the eventful game, one of the fiercest rivalry in English football.
Both sides came into this all important match with much to prove.United had a poor performance during the week with a draw against Rangers in the Champions league while Liverpool have made a slow start to theigr Premiership campaign and drew with Birmingham in their last outing in the league.
The teams top striking stars too had a lot to prove going into this game with Wayne Rooney not in the same form as last season with the media putting a lot of focus on his private life.On the other hand the once mighty Fernando Torres has been severly criticised for his poor performance this season and was under some trememdous pressure to start performing.
The Managers put up strong sides with the Liverpool side much more stronger and attacking minded than usual.Perhaps a statement of intent from the Liverpool boss with Raul Meireles starting right behind Torres with Gerrard,Poulsen and Cole all in the mix as well.
The one surprise that came from the United bench was the absence of Rio Ferdinand from the squad.Vidic has been handed over the Captains armband for the rest of the season and there was much speculation whether that had something to do with the absence of Ferdinand for the United side.
Liverpool did not seem to be getting outshined by United at the start although they did mighty little to trouble Van der Sar.Liverpool clearly then went missing and the game certainly lacked "spunk" and one felt a definite spark was needed to ignite the game and take it to another level. That spark came in the 42nd minute when Berbatov put the ball at the back of the net courtesy a Ryan Giggs corner.That certainly had to bring things to life.
The first forty five ended with United one up going into the break.
As for Liverpool, what Maxi did only he knows; maybe he shouldn't be in the side; Joe Cole had little chance to be part of the action but failed to impress and the much criticised Torres was described as a shadow of his former self by a commentator. Clearly Liverpool had problems and one could only hope that Hodgson had one hell of a half time talk prepared.
Come the second half; it was more attacking from United with Berbatov having a chance to put in a second as well as Nani striking the post. Liverpool just seemed to be all out of sorts even in the second half and a shade of brilliance from Berbatov in the 60th minute one would have thought more or less sealed the fate of Liverpool.
The 62nd minute saw a good pass from Joe Cole to Torres who was brought down by Evans in the box.Penalty kick and lifeline to Liverpool.The question was if Steven Gerrard would oblige and oblige he did.Liverpool struck back and now were one goal down.
Just a couple of minutes before the penalty Ngog was brought on for Maxi who frankly contributed nothing in this game. But then come the United onslaught again and it remained to be seen how long Liverpool would be able to sustain the onslaught and more over would they be able to somehow equalise.
In the 68th minute Torres was brought down by O' Shea who was the last man and should have been sent off, instead Gerrard had a free kick and duly scored and the game now stood level at 2 a piece and all of a sudden the theatre of dreams was alive and we had a game on our hands.
The game now had more than just a spark and the old Liverpool-United rivalry could certainly be seen.Berbatov had yet another trick up his sleeve with his third of the game and the genius struck yet again around the 83rd minute giving United the lead once again.
The positive for Liverpool was that Torres did manage to have an impact on the game and they did manage to comeback and make a game out of it which made for a thoroughly entertaining second half of the match.
The laurels though belong to Berbatov who has finally proved his worth to the United fans and shown why Sir Alex Ferguson has so much confidence in him; proving his Manager correct in spending the millions it took to bring Berbatov to United.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
