Saturday, 21st March 2010 – KO: 13:30

Well, what a season it has been for Liverpool. Barely able to string a couple of wins together, they have lost to just about everyone at some stage and are out of the running in all competitions except the Europa League.

They do appear to have found a little bit of form of late however and have won their last six games in all competitions.

Not that any of this really matters. Liverpool could come to Old Trafford on the back of ten straight defeats and still play like superheroes for 90 minutes.

We go into this match with a serious chance of winning the Premier League again which would make it an historic four in a row and nineteen titles in total – one more than Liverpool.

Liverpool will say that they need the points here today and that it is just one more game but preventing us from overtaking their tally will provide as big an incentive as any for them to do well here today.

Fergie has also said that the 4-1 drubbing Liverpool dished out to us last season was forgotten the week after but I don’t think he’s fooling anyone. He won’t have forgotten and neither will the players. Vidic has probably been at counselling sessions ever since that day.

I’m not going to go into too much detail here on this one. It is not really a game I would like to bet on anyway. One to watch, I think.

Apart from the usual suspects, Fergie has no new injuries and it will be interesting to see if Giggs plays any part in this one.

Liverpool also have no major injury problems – not even Gerrard and Torres (surprise, surprise).

I think this will be the usual hard fought encounter, the odds red card or two wouldn’t come as a major surprise either.

We go into this game on an incredible run of not only winning our home games but we have done so without conceding a goal in all but one of the last ten (1-0 defeat to Villa in December).

I think that little record might go today and whilst we should win the game, I think Liverpool will also score.

The bet is going to be 3 points OVER 2.5 goals @ 2.05 with Bet365.

I’m writing this review over a week after the game because of various computer problems (see this post) so events aren’t as fresh in my mind as usual.

Anyway, United got off to the worst possible start when Torres put Liverpool ahead after just five minutes with a terrific header from a great cross from Kuyt.

Parity was restored just seven minutes later however when United were awarded a penalty.

I have to admit, it didn’t look like a penalty in the strictest sense but I think United deserved it for the cynical nature of Mascherano’s foul. Valencia was on the ball and was bursting towards the Liverpool penalty area but Mascherano was all over him, tugging and pulling from behind which undoubtedly affected Valencia’s run.

At the last second, just as the two were just about on the line, Mascherano let go of Valencia but Valencia took his opportunity to go down in the box. The referee pointed to the spot and, quite laughably, Mascherano pointed to a point some three yards outside the box as if to say, “But I fouled him there!”

No attempt to hide the fact that he had cheated and was deliberately fouling the player in order to prevent a goal-scoring opportunity, just an attempt to make the referee see he had done it outside the box.

Anyway, Rooney stepped forward to take the penalty and Reina saved it brilliantly only for Rooney to tuck in the rebound.

The rest of the half was quite uneventful really with neither team really troubling the other greatly. After the blistering start of the opening fifteen minutes or so, it was perhaps no surprise that the tempo dropped a notch.

The breakthrough came for United on sixty minutes when Fletcher put in a good cross which Park bravely headed home.

With half an hour still to play, there were plenty of nervy moments to endure but we held out.

This was one of those games that our title rivals probably felt that we would drop points in and probably not even the most die-hard United fan would have counted on three points from this one, especially with last season’s 4-1 drubbing still fresh in the memory.

However, we did come through it and now sit at the top of the Premier League.