The Aftermath: United vs. Liverpool

The Breakdown:
Liverpool 2-3 United

Wow a true roller coaster ride of a game tonight... Happiness, elation, disappointment, anger, ecstasy, anxiety, and finally relief.

Dimitar Berbatov got the ball rolling with a 42 minute header which was what United deserved after a good 45 minutes against a seemingly lackluster Liverpool. Fifteen minutes after the break, Berbatov put home an exquisite overhead kick which looped deliciously over Reina's shiny head. At this point United were playing beautiful football. "Joga Bonito", as they say in Portuguese. Passes were coming together, runs were being made, and most importantly, Liverpool looked like a team with no answers to our attack.

Then Jonny Evans brings down Torres in our area and boom, Gerrard nails a penalty. After that, we panicked. Not long after, we concede a free kick right outside the box and a mixup in the wall leads to Gerrard grabbing a second goal. Dammit. It was easy to see that we didn't have the composure to keep Liverpool at bay and it told with four yellow cards (three for United) in a space of six minutes between Liverpool goals one and two.

With six minutes left on the clock however, Berbatov rose high above the Liverpool defense to head in another goal and put United fans all over the world into raptures. Cue some time wasting and... final whistle. United 3, Liverpool 2.

Reaction:
In some ways you can see this game as a success, but unfortunately I took more negatives than positives from this game. The obvious problem for us in this game was the inability to hold our lead. Twice already this season we've spurned the opportunity for three points, I did not want it to happen again.

I was particularly disappointed with John O'Shea who, other than providing the cross for the winning goal, did not seem able to defend Joe Cole's sporadic attacks and Darren Fletcher, who crumbled after his mistake allowed Gerrard to score Liverpool's second. I don't think Fletch has played that bad in a long time. No passes connected, his runs led to nothing, and his composure was gone. I hope this passes soon.

Our fluid play was a major positive though, and we can take a lot of heart from our solid attacks down the flanks. Nani in particular, apart from being quite the actor, was highly impressive against Paul Konchesky.

Best Player:
There is no other choice for this award. And the best part is, I predicted this in the game preview. Dimitar Berbatov was simply legendary tonight. He started and contributed to a majority of United's attacks and nailed three goals. One of which, will probably be a contender for goal of the season.

Welcome to United, Dimitar.

Where We Stood, Where We Stand:

1|Chelsea|4P|16GD|12PTS

2|Arsenal|5P|10GD|11PTS
3|United|5P|7GD|11PTS
4|Tottenham|5P|2GD|8PTS

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5|Newcastle|5P|2GD|7PTS