How vintage Red became vin ordinaire
It wasn’t that Liverpool were especially bad, more that they were just so very ordinary. And for a club with such a glorious tradition, that’s perhaps the harshest criticism of all.
To make matters worse, the afternoon could hardly have started any better for them. But the manner of Torres’s goal also betrayed, yet again, Liverpool’s alarming reliance on their two most iconic men. When El Nino and Gerrard play, Liverpool play. But when they don’t – and for most of the rest of this game they were reduced to bit-parts – Liverpool suffer.
This was especially the case at Old Trafford where the likes of Maxi Rodriguez, Javier Mascherano, Lucas and Kuyt could barely muster a creative spark between them. Once again, ordinary is the word. By contrast, a Man United lesser light like Ji Sung Park not only provided the industry for which he is a byword but also the brave, diving header to finish off one of the best moves of the game and give United the victory their overall dominance deserved.
Liverpool will moan about the awarding of the penalty which put United back on level terms but, for the real reason they lost this game, they should look no further than the brutal lack of imagination which characterised almost everything they did once the tide turned against them in the tenth minute.
Sure, Torres fluffed his cues right at the death but an equaliser then would have been a travesty, given that Edwin van der Sar had barely had a save of consequence to make all game. You know that something is desperately wrong at Liverpool when, in a match against their arch rivals, Daniel Agger balloons one over from about 30 yards and is then reduced to berating his colleagues for not giving him any other option.
United, on the other hand, were effective without being exceptional. Darren Fletcher might have picked up the man-of-the-match bubbly but it was Antonio Valencia who epitomised the team’s committed and controlled performance.
Valencia is obviously not a game changer in the style of Ronaldo but, even if he rarely flirts with the spectacular, he has emerged as an increasingly effective wingman. That Mascherano was reduced to cynically tugging him back after Valencia had glided past the hapless Insua summed up the Ecuadorean’s threat – and Liverpool’s generally feeble response.
Pity poor Pepe Reina. Torres’ goal aside, the ‘keeper’s save was the single most outstanding contribution made by any visiting player over the course of the game yet Rooney’s scent for goal is so strong that he was able to capitalise on an opponent’s brilliance to slide home.
Strength in depth is the other factor which separates these two clubs. When Alex Ferguson needed experience and big-match temperament, he could turn to Ryan Giggs. And when he needed someone to hold possession, he could bring on Paul Scholes.
In what had the look of a desperate throw of the tactical dice, Rafa Benitez sent on Ryan Babel, Alberto Aquilani and Yossi Benayoun but, aside from an expected if modest upping of the tempo as United retreated and Liverpool were obliged to chase the game, their impact on the outcome was negligible.
Contrast that with the one-man power station which was Wayne Rooney for United. He might not have graced the scoreline with a quality goal but his overall contribution was, once again, immense. This season, he has finally been liberated as a classic centre-forward but, yesterday, it was his willingness to come deep to receive the ball, and then to control in under pressure and use it productively with sweeping passes to the flanks, which demonstrated his footballing intelligence and selfless work-rate and underlined, yet again, his central importance to United’s title challenge.
For Liverpool, the task is of a different and arguably much more difficult order: how to make the ordinary as extraordinary as it used to be, how to turn vin ordinaire back into vintage reds. One thing is looking increasingly certain: the transformation isn’t going to happen under Rafa Benitez.
