Another game against a top side, another failure to win. But the second half performance hopefully points to the direction the rest of our season will take and there were some very encouraging signs. I think Brendan Rodgers would probably admit he got the tactics wrong for the first half, Utd looked shaky when we finally put pressure on their aging defence but the mistake of affording them too much time on the ball in the first half cost us both a goal against and also the momentum of the game which is key in high pressure fixtures such as this one.
We've been playing quite well lately, spells of top quality football have certainly been creeping into our game but this has happened because we've had the majority of possession, something that was denied to us in the first half at Old Trafford today. Had it been two or three nil at half time we couldn't really have complained, the clear chances all fell to the home side and only a great block by Skrtel and a couple of vital tackles by Agger saved us.
Rodgers brought on Sturridge at half time and changed the formation and at first it didn't really alter the pattern of the game but once we got use to the new system we improved and gave them a game. Unfortunately we were two nil down by this point and although our chances proved it wasn't too late, some sloppy finishing (story of our season.....) denied us an equaliser we arguably deserved.
After some eventful encounters between the two sides over the last couple of seasons today's match was fairly free of controversy but as always there were a couple of talking points. For Utd's second goal Skrtel fouled Welbeck outside the box and the home crowd, led by their manager (who claims he never pressures officials.......) bayed for a red card for our defender. It was certainly a foul but the ball ran straight through to Reina and it would take one hell of an argument to persuade me that Welbeck is good enough to create himself a clear goalscoring opportunity without being able to reach the ball. The free kick was accurate and Evra's header took a very fortunate deflection off the face of Vidic. When the ball left Evra's head Vidic has offside but only by a couple of centimetres, technically the goal shouldn't have stood but if you're going to defend your own six yard box so ineffectively you get what you deserve and complaining about a few centimetres is pretty futile - do your own job properly and there is no issue.
There was an incident midway through the second half that will surely dominate the post match talk and all of the back page headlines for the coming weeks though. The ball came into the Utd box from the right wing and Vidic headed it out for a corner. Howard Webb was partially unsighted (not for the first time at Old Trafford) and awarded a goal kick. And then, in possibly the most blatant act of cheating ever seen in Premier League football VIDIC DID NOT CHASE THE REFEREE AND CONFESS THAT THE BALL HAD GONE OUT OF PLAY OFF HIS HEAD. The entire crowd was stunned at this disgraceful act and I'm sure the FA charge will come for the defender first thing in the morning, acts like this SIMPLY CANNOT BE TOLERATED and if he is booed at every ground he visits for the rest he only has himself to blame. Or something like that anyway if the press and all football supporters are consistent with their views on the game.
Despite the defeat it certainly wasn't all doom and gloom for Liverpool, Sturridge looked very bright, alert, intelligent and full of energy and all of that, added to getting a goal on his league debut, will massively increase our attacking options for the rest of the campaign. Also it's been noted often enough (especially on these pages) that we have a young squad but we also have to remember we have a young manager who is still very much learning his trade. Rodgers may well have got the first half wrong but read the game well and made changes that gave us a decent chance of taking something from the match. The more experience our new manager gets of big games like this the better we will do in them and I have a lot more confidence going into the tricky away fixtures at City and Arsenal than I did before the second half of today's match.
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