Liverpool slumped to their heaviest Old Trafford defeat in 50 years on Saturday. Although the Reds were harshly playing with ten men for 85 minutes, it would have been far easier to stomach such a beating if Houllier had not responded to Hyppia's early sending off so negatively.
With players having been on international duty for 10 days, there was precious little time to prepare for this early kick off. Owen's back injury meant he didn't regain fitness in time, so it was a much overdue start for Baros.
However, Heskey's demotion from the England side to make way for Rooney meant he was given a confidence boost by his club manager and kept in the team. This meant that goal a game reserve striker Mellor was confined to the bench again. Otherwise the team contained no surprises, with Traore continuing to deputise for the injured Henchoz in central defence.
United showed their intentions when they had a chance in the first 15 seconds. Van Nistelrooy was sent through and his angled shot was pushed around the post by Dudek. Ruud, who needed to dash off afterwards to make a 3.45 appointment at Aintree, obviously wanted to get this game done and dusted as quickly as possible to preserve his energy.
Five minutes later his chance came when running through on goal, he got into a tussle with Hyypia, went down and was awarded a penalty. There's no doubt that Hyypia pulled him back, but it was arguably outside the area that the first contact was made. However Van Nistelrooy kept going and only when it became clear he may not manage a shot did he go down.
Then preposterously, Hyypia was sent off by Mike Riley. Yes, it was foul, but in these situations a penalty is normally seen as sufficient punishment. But there are different rules at Old Trafford, where it's rumoured United are consulted as to which referees they are happy to have taking charge of games.
Riley sent off Luke Chadwick when we won there in 2000-01 and he has had to lick arse every time he's been back there since. This was the 6th time in succession that he has given a penalty to United and the additional sending off was just repaying them with interest for last time he was in charge of a game between the teams.
There was never going to be a doubt about the outcome of the penalty. For £18 million Van Nistelrooy must be able to do something well and although he struggles against Liverpool when defenders mark him, scoring from 12 yards with only the keeper to beat is within his capabilities.
If it wasn't bad enough being down to 10 men, Houllier then made a substitution that as good as said 'okay, game lost, let's just lose 1-0 and retain the moral high ground'. On came Biscan to go into central defence and off came Baros, meaning Diouf moved into a more central role. The plan was clear, that we were going for damage limitation and hope to pinch something from a long ball to Heskey.
Attacking wide play was out of the question. The problem with a tactic like this is Heskey contributed nothing. He did very well defending corners, but was not hustling and bustling and bringing others into the game like a lone striker should. Quite often he was further back than Hamman or Riise, meaning when we did get the chance to go forward, the person who should have been there wasn't.
Other players in the team failed to respond too. Gerrard tried his best, but often his passing was slack, while Murphy was caught napping on too many occasions. If there was one bright spot it was Hamman, who tried to drive the team forward as best he could. But like Diouf who showed some nice touches, they were in vain as the sole centre forward was never there to receive the fruits of their labour.
For the 1st half hour we sat back and were fortunate not to go further behind.
Traore just managed to turn a Giggs cross over the bar instead of into his own net and a Silvestre strike was ruled out for a foul on Dudek. Liverpool were reduced to shots from distance but after the half hour mark gradually began to assert their authority more.
Hamman had a shot wide and Riise lined up a shooting opportunity before fluffing his kick. 3 minutes before the break Barthez was called into action for the 1st time when he saved Diuof's header from a corner. In between all this there was still time for United to attack with Traore clearing a Giggs shot off the line, but the last 15 minutes did give cause for optimism as the half time whistle blew.
However Liverpool started the 2nd half as they did the 1st, on the back foot.
But they were generally able to ward off United pressure and after 10 minutes
Hamman went on a surging run before laying off for Gerrard, whose shot was weak.
United's response to this brief foray into enemy territory was swift and Dudek had to make a great save from a dipping volley from Giggs. A couple minutes later Van Nistelrooy just failed to connect with a cross.
On 64 minutes we were further behind when a 2nd penalty was awarded. Biscan missed his kick and connected with Scholes instead. It was clumsy, not malicious, but he brought down the man and Riley had no option but to point to the spot.
As with the 1st one, Van Nistelrooy made no mistake. Dudek went the
right way but couldn't reach it. Despite there being 25 minutes left, it was
game over but Houllier didn't try anything bold by sending on Mellor. Instead he sent on Smicer, who has persistently failed to perform and his introduction hardly lifted the Reds support. Liverpool's fans remained resilient throughout, but to be honest the backing for the team became poor at this point.
Any chanting now was directed towards the United fans and sadly consisted of some Shipman songs again. United sensed we were lambs to the slaughter and sent on Beckham and O’Shea, not a usual Ferguson tactic 4 days before a Champions League 1Ü4 final. We offered nothing in return and after Solskjaer twice went close Giggs tapped in a 3rd on 78 minutes after being set up by Van Nistelrooy.
But despite this, their fans were still not overly excited and for the last 10 minutes it was the travelling Reds who made the most noise. YNWA got a good rendition and their quietness was highlighted with '3-0 and you still don’t sing'. However 'we won the cup' was a bit embarrassing. Given what's at stake, either side would rather have taken the six points on offer from league meetings this season any day.
Houllier's response to the goal was to deliver the final insult to Mellor by
sending on Cheyrou. He could have put the prolific young striker on for 10
minutes with no pressure to see if he could salvage anything, but instead he
sent on a player who has been an even bigger waste of space than Heskey this
season. As expected this change brought about nothing and we nearly suffered the final indignity of Gary Neville scoring against us when he shot just over the bar with 2 minutes left.
Despite the stoppages for goals and substitutions, only 1 minute was added on at the end. Although it was irrelevant, I can't help thinking that had the
scoreline been reversed, Ferguson would have been allowed to hold up his own board with '45' on it. But that 1 minute was enough time for Solksjaer to turn a convincing win for United into a rout, when he shot through the hesitant Traore's legs.
I initially thought that 4-0 was a bit harsh, but having seen the highlights
since, I have to say it was justified. We didn't have a shot on target and
United went close on a number of occasions. Ferguson said they cruised through the 2nd half, so I dread to think what may have happened if they played with more conviction.
The defeat was Liverpool's worst at Old Trafford since a 5-1 tonking in 1953-4. That same season we went 11 games without a win, an unwanted record Houllier has also surpassed this season. Add to that our first European exit to a Scottish side, longest run without a home league win for 50 years and it's becoming a season to forget.
Celtic, Valencia (twice), Basle, Everton and now United. These were our big games and the ones we needed to stand up and be counted in. We haven't won a single one of them. Parry and Moores can't fail to have noticed the lack of pride and passion and the inability of the management to instil it or change the course of games. The thing is, are they brave enough to do anything about it? Probably not.
Team: Jerzy Dudek, Jamie Carragher, Djimi Traore, Sami Hyypia, John Arne Riise; El Hadji Diouf (Vladimir Smicer), Dietmar Hamann, Steven Gerarrd, Danny Murphy (Bruno Cheyrou); Milan Baros (Igor Biscan) Emile Heskey:
