What a brilliant defensive performance by the entire team, especially after all the Charlie Cairoli-type displays we've endure this season. That's two on the bounce now, in which we've defended as a team. Won as a team. Nine more to go. If we play as well as did against Southampton (the most underrated team in the league) and United in our last, four remaining away games, we should pick up maximum points. I wonder if he sticks with this formation for the remaining away games? And whether he tweaks it at home, where he knows it has the makings of five cup finals backed by a crowd that knows the possibilities which await...
First off, the front five of Suarez, Struridge, Sterling, Allen - and yes, Henderson - really set the pattern of play by not allowing the United defence or centre mids a moment on the ball. The pressing was outstanding, the movement and passing (on the whole) precise. Sturridge could've had two goals by twenty minutes, all through the team winning the ball in the centre of United's half and putting slide rule passing beyond the United's square back four. Allen was everywhere. Fucking everywhere. A real, non-stop 90 minutes of harrying, hassling, tracking, pressing, of quick passes and quick movements. He hardly stopped. And Sterling plays like he's been playing Champions League standard football for a decade. Whether he's asked to play right forward, left forward, right wing back, right back, or in a No. 10 position in the diamond - as he has done for half a game last week and yesterday - he plays with intelligence, passes efficiently, runs and turns (all in one beautiful movement!) dangerously. What a pearl of a player. How far can this lad go in the game?
Allied to the front 5, we had two aggressive full backs on front foot from the first whistle, forcing back United's most creative players - wrongly utilised as wingers, by a United manager still blowing dust of the 1950s tactical manual - starving Rooney and Van Persy of anything worthwhile.
Orchestrating everything was Stevie G. He really gave a towering performance. I'm so glad there are so many young players around him (and coming through) who can watch and learn what a captain's role is. How to take the game by the scruff of the neck. He took no shit from anybody. Bulldozed Fellani off the pitch and out of the game effectively. It was Souness-esque in it's mastery of the opposition. I never doubted for a moment that he'd miss either of those first two pens. The third I wasn't arsed about. The game was over. And after the game, it didn't seem to bother him. He knows what's needed, knows how close he is. He knows the real prize isn't individual glory in the form of hatricks, but that big gleaming bit of silverware coming into view.
Agger and Skrtel were steady and, as I said earlier, helped by an outstanding front 5, didn't really see much of the ball. At one point, Skrtel, feeling so left out, ran 70 yards to the edge of United's penalty area to trip Juan Mata. Let's hope that we can keep both fit and playing as assuredly as they did yesterday for the remaining nine games.
Once Sturridge had won the match with the third penalty, and Vidic was sent off, the rest of the game was so easy, you'd have felt embarrassed if a Liverpool side had played so gutlessly at home against our biggest rivals - even if deprived of a full complement of players. Moyes has made United in to Everton. That's his football legacy. Not the current Bobbie Martinez's Everton, but the, old Moyes' Everton, which we usually easily beat home and away, barring a couple of anomalies. Like many of those past Moyes' Everton v Liverpool Derbies, there were times in the game yesterday were his current side brought us down to their level and the game became a scrappy affair. That's how he's scraped draws in the past at against, or the odd jammy win. But it didn't last, though.
Because we then remembered we were at Old Trafford, playing the champions, Manchester United, (despite the idiot in the home dug out) cementing our place in this season's title race. And we got the ball down. And we harried. And we chased. And we won back possession. And we played fluid, quick passing football again. And we created chances. And we scored. And we won.
And it was great.