Actually Alex, Not a Catastrophe

This past Sunday Manchester United beat Liverpool 3-2 at Old Trafford. Alex Ferguson called it a "catastrophe" for Liverpool. Perhaps he needs to take a look in the mirror because we are rubber and they are glue. To my innocent eyes it was a bad day for Roy Hodgson but in the end points to a bad season for his Scottish buddy.

That conclusion may appear to fly in the face of logic but as a Liverpool fan I have to confess to being surprisingly satisfied with the game. Of course we were awful. The defending was criminal and the attack lacked potency. We are a team in a hideous downward spiral, playing even worse than last season and frankly the gradual downgrade in expectations can be mildly comforting. Liverpool aren't gonna win the league this year. We're almost certainly not gonna qualify for the Champions League. In fact, if Hodgson pulls us kicking and screaming into sixth that'll be a bonus. There's the FA Cup and Europa League to have a go at, whisper it, even the Whichever Beer it is This Season Cup would be a nice piece of silverware on the shelf. This year is all about getting rid of the American owners, and in some kind of ironic twist failure is taking us closer to that goal.

Meanwhile in Manchester their success over the last twenty years is what tempted the Glazers in and being on the cusp of further glory is keeping them entrenched. Torres could've left this summer and it would've been because he needed to play for a team challenging for the title as well as because of the dodgy finances. Rooney was offered to Real Madrid because of a crippling debt which requires players to be sold on for massive profits as often as possible. His injury and lack of form towards the end of the year kept him a Red but doesn't disguise the fact that Alex is having to scrounge around in the bargain basement, taking a chance on young Mickey Owen last year and a little Bebe this. Relying on the still surprisingly fine legs of Scholesy and Giggsy. Hoping Nani doesn't play well enough to turn heads in Spain.

United should have had a cricket score against Liverpool, fact. Dimitar Berbatov got a jolly classy hat trick but happily for the rest of the league apparently there can only be one striker on form in the red half of Manchester, the balding one is increasingly distracted by his own ridiculousness off the field. Liverpool were allowed back into the game because another out of sorts world class forward made a couple of distinctly average defenders very nervous. Two fouls, two strikes, two goals. That Liverpool came anyway near taking anything from this game is a catastrophe on a par with Everton taking two points off United a week previously, the last minute Fulham equaliser in August and the stalemate, at Old Trafford, against Rangers. It's pretty clear that there are blue clouds on the horizon and Fergie's taunting of Liverpool is simply a rather sparse smokescreen to cover his own team inadequacies. Think it's time for retirement.