Post match celebrations v ManWho

[Reece]

You'll let me off because I'm drunk

[EwarWoo]

I've been very surprised since the result.

I think it's a first, but all the mancs on mixed board I go to have actually been good losers.

I have no fackin idea what happened to them. I think someone must have hacked their accounts.

Majority response seems to be devastated, no complaints, they were better than us.

It's really disappointing, it takes the fun out of stirring them when they're doing that. Cunts.

[Reece]

I've been very surprised since the result.

I think it's a first, but all the mancs on mixed board I go to have actually been good losers.

I have no fackin idea what happened to them. I think someone must have hacked their accounts.

Majority response seems to be devastated, no complaints, they were better than us.

It's really disappointing, it takes the fun out of stirring them when they're doing that. Cunts.

How was your session at the gym today?

[EwarWoo]

How was your session at the gym today?

[Reece]

Just messing mate

[EwarWoo]

Just messing mate

I know, I was just saying it wasn't working, no bite from me

In the league nothing is forgone and it's the ONLY thing that matters to me this season.

Well, bull****, not the only thing that matters, but as I said in the other thread, everything else seems like a very very distant consolation prize.

I just can't get excited about the CL until we break our PL duck. It feels somehow fake and shallow. Although I'm sure that will change as we get closer to the final.

Not to mention would never miss a game against the mancs in any comp.

THIS was the game of the season.

[rodo]

what a weekend for these pair of pricks
Pair fined over football stickers
A man and a teenager have been fined for posting "offensive" anti-Liverpool stickers around Old Trafford.

The pair aged 17 and 51, were caught at 2330 GMT on Friday putting stickers up near Salford Quays and Manchester United's ground.

Both admitted criminal damage. It was ahead of Manchester United's Premier League game with Liverpool FC.

The stickers "contained offensive message to the visiting fans" said Greater Manchester Police.

The pair were given fixed penalty notices of £80 each.

Ch Supt Janette McCormick said: "We will proactively target anyone who thinks they can get away with posting stickers like this.

"The sort of message that was on them gave the wrong impression to any visitors about the city and could have even inspired negative feelings between the two sets of supporters.

"In this case - this pair was hit where it hurts - in their wallets and I hope it serves as a deterrent to others who may be tempted to get involved in similar stupid behaviour."

[Imy]

Did anyone notice Reira pinching the crap out of Torres face when he got subbed, also how Reira missed Dossena's goal so Torres was explaining to him what happened

[Shaggy]

Go on Dion!

By DION FANNING


Sunday March 15 2009

Touchable. Liverpool made Manchester United look like Real Madrid at Old Trafford yesterday. When the Spanish champions were exposed at Anfield on Tuesday night, all praise of Liverpool's ferocity and skill was hushed by knowing voices insisting that Madrid are a brittle team comprised of shirkers and chancers.

Manchester United were supposed to offer more but they crumbled in a characterless display which was astonishing for the number of big stars who chose yesterday afternoon to disappear.

Rafael Benitez had insisted on Friday that United were not untouchable, as some had dubbed them since they went on a run of victories that had moved them clear at the top of the table. Benitez chose again last week to offer some more facts to add to the catalogue he had listed in January which so enraged Ferguson.

Ferguson was supposed to have won that psychological battle but despite his protestations that Benitez's words hadn't bothered him, he doesn't like anybody pointing out the massive influence he has on English football.

Perhaps, Benitez won the battle after all. Yesterday, the referee got the big decisions right, sending off Nemanja Vidic and correctly awarding each side a penalty. Benitez may be crazy like a fox.

Liverpool certainly didn't look like the vanquished. "Rafa's cracking up," the Liverpool fans sang happily as United's players spent the early afternoon wandering dejectedly all across Old Trafford looking for Fernando Torres.

Torres and Gerrard have started only nine games together this season and Benitez could rightly claim that this has had the greatest impact on their title challenge.

Ferguson will be pointing out to his players that it is only one game and Liverpool will probably still regret the dropped points against the weaker Premier League sides. If United are flat-track bullies, Liverpool's failure to perform in Stoke and Wigan as they can in Manchester and Madrid has undermined their ambitions.

If United win their game in hand they will again have a seven-point lead but this side's pretension towards greatness has been undermined by this capitulation. The £60m Ferguson spent on Michael Carrick, Anderson and Dimitar Berbatov looked like financial recklessness. On the evidence of Carrick and Anderson's performances yesterday (Berbatov was left out), Bernie Madoff would have brought a better return.

And then there was Cristiano Ronaldo. He opened the scoring with a penalty yesterday but then disappeared into a vortex of vanity. Six minutes from time, he reappeared in front of the Liverpool goal, only to miss the ball completely. He will look forward to playing against Fulham next week.

When Liverpool beat United at Anfield in September, Ferguson said his side had defended like a non-league team. This time, facing Torres and Gerrard, neither of whom had started in that victory, United rarely reached that standard.

Liverpool had to rearrange their back four after Alvaro Arbeloa was injured in the warm-up, but it was United who looked as if they had pulled a ringer or two from the stands to make up the numbers. Rio Ferdinand -- apart from repeated attempts to kick Torres out of the game -- was vacant and Vidic was sent off, as he was at Anfield, for a professional foul.

Perhaps it was the sight of a Liverpool player scoring at Old Trafford for the first time since 2004 that shook United or it may have just been Fernando Torres.

United were as casual and as unprofessional as they had been against Inter last Wednesday, but they weren't facing Zlatan Ibrahimovic yesterday. Torres, at last approaching full fitness, has a terrifying cocktail of honesty and bewitching skill, aided by an assassin's temperament. He hustled Vidic for the mistake that led to the first goal, finished it nonchalantly and then played Gerrard in for the foul which allowed Liverpool to take the lead.

They controlled the game and even in the second half when they sat back a little, a lifeless, coasting United created nothing. They were seemingly convinced that whatever happened on the pitch, nothing could alter their destiny.

Ferguson viewed things differently. With 20 minutes to go, he made three changes, suggesting that he didn't think this game would have no impact on the title race. Carrick, Anderson and Park were the three withdrawn but he could have pulled the names out of a hat.

It made no difference. Vidic was sent off for fouling Gerrard, Aurelio scored from the free-kick and then, most insultingly, Andrea Dossena, a figure of fun for Liverpool supporters -- although perhaps not anymore -- scored the fourth.

There were a number of facts to cheer Benitez: his first win at Old Trafford, his hundredth league win at Liverpool and, most importantly, three points which he had demanded as a necessity to keep Liverpool in the title race.

But he has also perhaps had a week which will grant him the respect he deserves and, last week, demanded. The opinion-formers in the English game have never warmed to him for the simple reason that he has little time for their opinions.

They have talked about rotation and criticised his transfer policy, forgetting that he bought Torres when Ferguson doubted the player, instead signing Nani, Anderson and Owen Hargreaves. Benitez has had less spare change and could afford fewer gambles but he has created a first team that can challenge the best. They must now learn to beat the worst and hope that this defeat has caused United to doubt themselves.

Ferguson will try to ensure it doesn't. He has seen it all before, seen his side lose five to Newcastle and six to Southampton and still win the title. But his ego will have been battered by United's worst defeat at Old Trafford in 17 years, their worst defeat since knocking Liverpool off their "f***ing perch" was still his main prize.

Benitez made some big statements in recent weeks but through the wonder of Torres and the industry of his side, he has ensured that, as he insisted, the title is still in play. Right now, he appears to be in possession of just the facts.

- DION FANNING

[Shaggy]

AND AGAIN!

RAGING FERGUSON INSISTS UNITED 'WERE THE BETTER SIDE'

By DION FANNING


Sunday March 15 2009

If there was any doubt that this defeat hurt Alex Ferguson, if there was any question that Rafael Benitez's effrontery in attacking the alpha male of the Premier League had enraged United's manager, it was swept away in the wake of Liverpool's 4-1 victory at Old Trafford yesterday.

When Liverpool had beaten United in September, Ferguson had been magnanimous in defeat. There was a long way to go and Ferguson knows better than anyone how long it is, so he didn't view it as a defeat at all. Yesterday, it was he, not Benitez, who sounded like he was cracking up.

"It is a hard one to take because I felt we were the better team," he said as he reflected on United's worst home defeat since 1992. "That is not reflected in the scoreline and quite rightly, when you win 4-1, you get all the plaudits."

He was in denial about everything else, though. United's important players had gone into hiding long before Andrea Dossena scored a fourth goal to give Liverpool a victory they, and Fernando Torres in particular, deserved.

Ferguson saw it differently, blinded as he was by his fury in being humiliated by Benitez, who had criticised the United manager's influence in the game in his outburst in January.

Yesterday, Liverpool were helped by a free-thinking referee who rightly sent off Nemanja Vidic and also got two penalty decisions right. The fact that two of these three decisions helped Liverpool is something United supporters are not used to seeing at Old Trafford

"We won because we have good players with good quality and great character," Benitez said, before adding that Liverpool will have to win their nine remaining games if they are to have a chance of catching United. If it happens, and United remain favourites, then Ferguson's fury yesterday will be seen as restrained and sanguine.

- DION FANNING

[Guest]

There's also one very good article by Jonathan Northcroft (I think) from the Sunday Times. Will try to pick that up. He literally blasted Vidic in that article.

Edited: Jonathan Northcroft

[Guest]

From The Sunday Times
March 14, 2009
Attack on Nemanja Vidic breaks United's centre
Jonathan Northcroft
As dawn broke in Central America, a metaphorical Stetson was being tipped. Tom Hicks, the Texan who co-owns Liverpool, watched the game in Mexico where his son, Alex, got married yesterday. Kick-off was at 5.45am local time and Hicks followed events at Old Trafford on television blearily and gleefully. It felt like Rafael Benitez had come up with the perfect wedding present. After all, Alex, on a visit to Merseyside, had proposed to his bride-to-be out on the Anfield pitch.

The latter detail is unlikely to melt the hearts of the many Koppites who dislike the Hicks family. But every Liverpool supporter on the planet could agree to celebrate a marriage. Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard only got together 19 months ago but theirs has been a whirlwind relationship. Romance, of a football sort, seems in the air whenever they take the pitch together and Gerrard, after putting Liverpool 2-1 ahead from the penalty spot, even planted a smacker on a TV camera lens.

His partnership with Torres already looks as if it might one day be worthy of talking about in the same breath as those between Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush, and John Toshack and Kevin Keegan. El Nino and El Capitan plunged stilettos into a soft underbelly of Manchester United none knew existed, puncturing the reputation of one of the world’s top defenders in the process. As footballers of supreme strength and energy, fine technique and powerful spirit, and fearsome speed of foot and mind, playing against one of them must be bad enough, two a waking nightmare. There were no complaints when Gerrard handed Torres the champagne as man of the match but it could just as easily have been the other way around.

Liverpool’s problem has been not getting their fearsome twosome on the field together often enough. Injuries have blighted Torres’ campaign in particular and yesterday was only the ninth time in this season’s Premier League that the pair have started a game together. Their side’s record in those matches reads won six, drawn three, lost none and the two have scored 12 goals — Torres eight, Gerrard four.

Benitez might be in charge of a team leading the league rather than — for all yesterday’s efforts — one chasing a familiar foe had he been able to use the tandem more often.

It was he who saw Gerrard and Torres as an attacking combination in the first place, moving Gerrard to a second-striker position at the start of the 2007-08 season and signing Torres for a club record £26m to play in front of him. It is he who should feel Liverpool being deprived of them most keenly, although he refused to make any grand statements about what might have been. “Clearly the two are key players and when they are on the pitch the rest of the team has more confidence. We know they can score goals and change games,” he said. “We have other good players in our team but if we don’t have either one of them it’s a big loss.”

Torres, in particular, was responsible for the fall of Nemanja Vidic, something which for the multitude of strikers who have suffered against the Serbian must have felt like the Berlin Wall coming down. Torres toppled the previously impregnable centre-half and partied amid the wreckage. Initially it seemed Vidic, with Rio Ferdinand’s help, would repel the Spaniard. On an early break, Torres was dumped on the ground and left to cry in vain for a penalty when he tried to run through a gap between the defenders. After another attack he was left on his haunches, wincing from a Vidic challenge.

Then came a moment that changed perceptions of Liverpool’s capabilities. Against Real Madrid Torres demonstrated his ability to make the most expert opponent look a novice when he forced the great Fabio Cannavaro to suffer a series of humiliations. Now it was Ferdinand’s turn to be embarrassed. Torres, with a blink-and-miss-it turn, whirled past Ferdinand inside the United box. Torres could not capitalise and United scored a minute later but soon the Spaniard was back shaming Vidic, beating the Serb for pace, power and wit to score Liverpool’s first goal.

What happened next confirmed Torres is a warrior. Vidic was on the warpath and many would shrink from such a prospect but the next time Torres got the ball he actively sought the defender out and had the further temerity to sell him a nutmeg in the penalty area. Shortly afterwards, Torres beat Vidic to a header and was barged to the ground, with United lucky not to concede a penalty. By this time Vidic’s shirt had come untucked, he was blowing heavily and blood welled from a scar on his face: he was wobbling. Edit: I Love that bit.

Torres came deep to receive possession, Vidic was too fearful to track him, Torres played in Gerrard to win Liverpool’s penalty. Torres, who has been playing with the help of injections, “felt painful” as the match progressed, according to Benitez, so Gerrard took over and finished Vidic off, his surge past the Serbian met with a professional foul and followed by an inevitable red card for the United man.

Among the many extraordinary statistics generated yesterday was one stating that Gerrard’s goals were the first all season scored against United by an Englishman. “I’ve been lucky enough to win at Old Trafford before and that’s a fantastic feeling. To score goals as well, after all the stick I’ve had from United fans over the last 10 years — it’s nice to rub it in,” Gerrard said.

Torres added, a little menacingly: “It’s hard to play like this every week but we are confident now.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article5908646.ece

[Shaggy]

Hahaha a great read. This is beautiful.

[shanks69]

the only sad part about yesterday was,gillett was there to see it.

[MrMichael]

Full game to download

First half - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NSZZPUWF

Second half - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VKQ6130K