Lucky? Man Utd rested half their first team side and still walked away from Anfield with a point. No Vidic, Nani, Anderson, Hernandez or Rooney in the starting lineup. It was semi mocking liverpool almost, considering Ferguson had claimed this was the biggest club game in the world. No doubt resting for the away european and home city games in the next week.
Man Utd were undoubtably poor, but it was all up to Liverpool to beat this weakened team at home and.....they couldn't. It took a soft free kick and lucky deflection off a simple wall mistake to get a goal for Liverpool. Even Gerrard said his hit was lucky. Says as much about Liverpool as it does about Man Utd's performance.
Nani took the corner and Hernadez scored, they can't do that from the bench obviously , and Frgi changed the formation is to a defensive one, not to " rest" players, but for fear of a loss like the last 3 times they came to Anfield
Sorry newmonday you must have missed the bit where i said they didn't start and yes, some were subbed on at 70 minutes and Hernandez for the last 15.
This constitutes a rest any which way you look at it if they were fit enough to come on and play a short while as impact subs. Man Utd could have easily started with all these players it seems and had them play most of the match i.e a half and more instead of the 15-20 they did.
Liverpool played a willfully weakened United side. Nothing more complicated about that.
@newmonday are you dumb or are you too naive to know why SAF put that line up? Firstly he want to get at least draw/clean sheet in 1st half, and once thing settle he throw his 3 goals threat in Nani, Rooney and Chicharito, at the same time he also rest them to play for the Cl match in 3 days time, as well as ready for City Clash the week after. Fear? lol
Untd changed the whole shape of the team to a defensive one, everyone knows that, if it was only to "rest" players he would have changed an attacker for another. in the end it was as disappointing for Liverpool as dropping points to Sunderland no more.
Suarez needs to learn to stay on his feet as well. I heard Barca are scouting both him and Adam to see how perfectly they'd fit in the squad.
Hah. All that aside, Liverpool was the better team and did well to control play. I'm disappointed with Fergie's starting squad choices. I'm not happy with a draw but I'll take it. Cheers to De Gea who had an incredible match and was easily my MotM. Next week is the real test though.
@below: I could say the same for Ronaldo and Nani but come on. Ok buddy, twisting and diving through the defense.. got it "highly skilled".. dually noted.
So United gets away with the ref not sending Rio off for what was a dive or as some would say "soft foul" and an unintentional handball that never gets called anymore no matter what team is playing? You're grasping for straws on trying to say United get extra treatment.
@pool fans: do you guys not know the difference between hand to ball and ball to hand. Give it up. Ball to hand almost never gets called. I didn't feel like having to explain it as that so i just called it unintentional. Ball to hand will almost never be called, especially when it hits the players hand when its down at their sides.
unintentional? this was a certain penalty United got away with it. Liverpool was the better team but missed great chances and should have had all three points
Evans one was ball to hand so yes that is unintentional, I'm guessing you lot missed the Enrique handall when it came of his shoulder than touched his hand.
And what about Enriques handball, it hit him on the arm and the hand and was more a penalty than Evans handball yet nobody mentions it. Also how did Suarez escape a yellow card for kicking Evra in the knee?
1-1 was a fair score; there should either have two penalties or none - Enrique and Evans both handled so liverpool fans should stop acting hard done by.
Also liverpool are no where near winning the league; couldnt beat a second string Man U team at home lol with their best team.
Plus if teams have to rely on penaltys to win then they don't deserve to win. That's what I believe. If you think otherwise that's your opinion. But to say Liverpool lost because of a penalty call? That's showing your lack of confidence in the team.
"If liverpool had a penalty, that wud've changed the game" you took the lead 1-0, that changed the game right? didnt matter though did it, we still came back. both hand balls were ball to hand. both teams were rubbish no one really deserved to win, liverpool should be more disappointed dropping points at home.
Interesting starting line up from Fergie. Was it because he figured that the game was gonna be tight and wanted to use his star players as impact subs, or was it because this would've been their 2nd game in 4 days so he was giving them a rest? Owen and Berbatov weren't even on the bench and they weren't involved in any internationals this past week.
From what I see is that SAF plan is to rest his key players as well as getting at least a point out of this match, he also looking at CL clash (where we need to win all our remaining games) and the City game next week, so I think he got his formation spot on if it wasn't for the 1st goal where he already about to put Rooney and Nani on but unfortunately the goal went in before they came on
Liverpool did what most clubs did they went a goal up and let United bring on the pressure and couldn't cope. It's the difference between the squads. However it did take Uniteds big guns coming on to do it which says as much about United as it does liverpool. They always bang on about Uniteds depth but it seems there depth isnt as strong as we are led to believe still there first 11 are still capable to taking on anybody in the prem toe to toe. The Darby next week just got a LOT more interesting :)
United continued their lucky streak Liverpool should have won this by at least 2
What a disgraceful dive by Adams, De Gea was briliant today.
Played well, and realistically it's a decent point to pick up - but it's hard to be 'happy' about the result considering the way it came about.
Up against a keeper who made some ridiculous saves, or we'd have won comfortably.
Once again Man U get away with things any other team would never have gotten away with...
Charlie Adam, dive or foul either way the kick was given and Ferdinand shouldve been off
And then there was the Evans handball...
Liverpool wasted their chances though
diverpool played well lol