United’s knockout blow

Liverpool 0 Man Utd 1

By scoring the stoppage time winner in front of the Kop on Saturday, John O’Shea is guaranteed a special mention when Alex Ferguson comes to describe the defining moment of his ninth championship success.

For make no mistake, the title is heading back to Manchester after three years in London. And it will be in the bag long before O’Shea celebrates his 26th birthday at the end of April after United enjoyed the sort of luck against Liverpool that championship-winning sides require now and again.

Nine points ahead of nearest rivals Chelsea with nine games remaining, United have won six of their last seven league games including the last five. Jose Mourinho and his players were hoping this would be the day when the leaders would give them a glimmer of hope of catching up, and for 90 minutes it looked as though they would.

All of a sudden the dismissal of Paul Scholes, who in one moment of madness thought he was a boxer instead of a footballer, and Wayne Rooney’s worrying knee injury vanished along with Liverpool’s unbeaten 30-match Premiership Anfield record.

“It must be soul-destroying for Chelsea to be watching this,” remarked O’Shea after his seventh and most important league goal of his career.

“Watching with a couple of minutes to go, they must be thinking maybe we’re going to drop two points, maybe even three points, that Liverpool might knock one in.

“But this kind of thing has been done to us in the past. You have to take the rough with the smooth. It has been fairly rough going in the last couple of games, but we’ve been getting maximum points.

“When you’re on the wrong end of results like this, it’s just a cause of having to dig deep. And you have to give us credit for that because we’ve not been as fluent as we can be recently, but we’ve been winning.”

There is something about playing Merseyside teams that brings out the very best — and the worst — in O’Shea. He netted against Everton earlier this season while Liverpool’s failure to score on Saturday means they have only found the back of the net once in six league games against United — an own goal by the Republic of Ireland international.

Indeed a Liverpool player has not scored from open play in the league against United since a consolation from Harry Kewell in a 2-1 defeat at Anfield in November 2003.

They had the chances to change all that in this game, but for the second time in three seasons Rafa Benitez’s side allowed their bitter rivals to record the ‘double’ over them.

Benitez’s three-and-a-half-year

Anfield reign has been littered with frustrations, but even the Spaniard found it difficult to explain how his side ended up with no points from a game they should have sown up long before O’Shea stole the headlines.

Edwin van der Sar’s contribution was as significant as O’Shea’s; the Dutch keeper producing fine stops to deny Craig Bellamy and Peter Crouch.

Liverpool’s hopes had been raised by the sight of Rooney, who has now failed to score in six outings, leaving the pitch prematurely due to a knee injury while Scholes’ swing at Xabi Alonso, which will earn the former England midfielder a three-match ban, also gave home fans hope of a morale-boosting win ahead of tomorrow’s titanic Champions League battle with Barcelona.

They had clearly forgotten about United’s never-die-spirit — the same spirit which saw them lift the European Cup in 1999 — as the 10 men visitors conjured up a killer punch having spent most of the game on the ropes.

“It’s unbelievable how we lost this match because we controlled the game and deserved to win it,” said Benitez.

“We controlled the attacking side of the game and had many corners and free-kicks, but in football you sometimes have luck and sometimes have bad luck. We must stay positive now and look forward to the Barcelona game and maybe we will have better luck on Tuesday.”

Opta Fact: Paul Scholes has been sent off twice in the Premiership both on Merseyside — first against Everton and now versus Liverpool.

Opta Fact: United have done the double over the Reds in a Premiership season four times — this is the third time since 2002-03.