Liverpool v Manchester United: abject surrender at Anfield reveals a deeper malaise at Old Trafford
Sir Alex Ferguson has endured some miserable results during his 950 league games in charge of Manchester United, but few will rival his team’s abject surrender at Anfield, either for pain or significance.
Pain game: Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson cuts a lonely figure at Anfield as his team are beaten by Liverpool Photo: EPA
By Mark Ogden 6:40PM GMT 06 Mar 2011
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The United manager confessed to spending all weekend "under the duvet" after his players were on the wrong end of a 5-1 hammering at Manchester City in 1989 and a 5-0 defeat at Newcastle seven years later, quickly immortalised in the form of a video named Howay Five-O, will be in Ferguson’s top-five horror shows.
They will join the 4-0 rout at Anfield in September 1990, when Peter Beardsley’s hat-trick ball was spitefully booted into the Kop by United goalkeeper Les Sealey at the final whistle, and the 2-0 collapse at the same ground in April 1992 which ended United’s title challenge and handed the championship to Leeds United.
When United slumped to that defeat in the 1991-92 season, the disappointment burned so deeply into the soul of Ferguson and his players that the motivation it generated propelled the team to a decade of domestic dominance.
Rather than imbue his squad with a steely resolve never to allow such pain to be suffered again, however, Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Kenny Dalglish’s team emitted a wholly different sense of time running out on this group of players.
This was not a United team on the rise, experiencing a setback which could provide the building block for future successes.
This was a group of players with more battles behind them than ahead and a team in dire need of an injection of charisma, exuberance and pace.
The previous dismal defeats were all shrugged off with the lifting of silverware, but although United are still just about in control of their destiny in terms of claiming a record 19th title this season, Ferguson cannot rely on this same group of players to deliver beyond the end of this campaign.
Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are guaranteed lifelong membership of United’s platinum club, but at 37 and 36 respectively, the sands of time have reduced to a final few grains.
Wes Brown, a player who has made a career out of being a dependable back-up, now no longer ticks that box. This was his first start in the league since November and it showed as he missed the flight of balls, misjudged passes and replicated the turning cycle of the ocean liners that once sailed down the Mersey.
In midfield, Michael Carrick singularly failed to provide the legs or attacking verve required when deployed alongside Giggs and Scholes, while Nani reverted to his frustrating worst before being kicked out of the game by Jamie Carragher’s brutal first-half challenge.
And then there was Wayne Rooney. The 25 year-old, once billed as the "Golden Boy of English football" by former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson offered little once again.
Scholes twice berated Rooney in the second half as the heavy touch and sloppy passes that have helped define his season gifted possession to Liverpool and ended promising attacking forays.
In mitigation, United can point to a host of injuries to key men for the recent slump that has now seen them lose three league games in the space of a month.
Rio Ferdinand has missed all three of those defeats with the two-week calf injury that has now kept him sidelined for five. Without the 32 year-old, United lack authority and presence at the back and, when Nemanja Vidic is also unavailable — suspension ruled him out at Anfield — their opponents experience the same glee as a child on Christmas morning.
Ji-Sung Park, Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen, Anderson and Jonny Evans are also unavailable, while Owen Hargreaves no longer even merits a mention.
But the options left for Ferguson are simply not of the same calibre of those in previous great teams.
Gabriel Obertan and Darron Gibson both sat on the bench at Anfield, but neither would come close to breaking into the 1999 Treble squad. The same could be said of Bebe.
Javier Hernandez, the £7 million Mexican forward, has unquestionably been a stellar performer since arriving under the radar from Chivas de Guadalajara last summer and his injury-time goal underlined his Solskjaer-like ability to score from the bench.
But while Ferguson bemoaned the lack of value in the market last summer, Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp somehow managed to sign Rafael van der Vaart for Tottenham for £8 milion. How United lack a player of the Dutchman’s imagination and attacking intent.
Scholes once had it in bucketloads, but age has diminished his goalscoring qualities of the past.
Liverpool’s empire crumbled because ageing stalwarts were replaced by players who simply didn’t match up and the danger for United is that history might be repeating itself for them.
No wonder the Kop sang Always Look on the Bright Side of Life at the final whistle.
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