Fast forward to early October 2010. Rafa Benitez, having lost at Eastlands and drawn home games against Birmingham and Fulham, arrives at Old Trafford for a showdown with bitter rivals that already appears key to a season’s ambitions.
Wayne Rooney profits from a late slip by Martin Skrtel, controversially now ahead of Jamie Carragher in the pecking order, to plunder the only goal which carries Manchester United back to the Premier League summit and leaves Liverpool nine points adrift in fifth.
The title is just a distant dream. Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, who were persuaded to stay at Anfield just a few months earlier by the promise of new signings, cut disillusioned figures.
The camera pans to a dejected David Silva, who remained in his tracksuit throughout having failed to impress since an £18million move from Valencia.
Afterwards, Benitez berates the Rhone Group, already at loggerheads with Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and whose £20m injection of capital pales into insignificance compared to the £80m spree that Roman Abramovich sanctioned at Chelsea in the summer. Liverpool supporters are mutinous. Again.
If something like that particular scenario is not to come to pass, then monumental decisions need to be taken at Anfield at the end of the season. And in that sense, yesterday’s defeat in the self-styled Theatre of Dreams might even be a blessing.
It will be difficult for the Liverpool supporters, who headed back along the M62 smarting from their first reversal at the hands of their most bitter rivals in four games, to accept as much as the horrible memory of Torres’ fluffed chance in the final seconds of normal time lingered.
Yet that is the stark reality that not even salvaging fourth place, a distant dream today, will cure.
Liverpool’s season is at the point where any glorious highs like the one they briefly imagined here, before Javier Mascherano brainlessly decided to offer Sir Alex Ferguson’s side a helping hand, can be seen as papering over cracks and should not be confused with mending them.
Anfield needs a fresh start because this club is stuck in a cycle, a vicious circle that will continue to whirl until major changes take hold.
Whether it is Benitez who leaves – expensive for a club so paranoid about finances – remains to be seen. Whether it is Gerrard or maybe even Torres – whose departures would raise funds unlikely to be plentiful by other means – is an alternative.
That all three at various times, and probably on the coach ride back to Melwood yesterday, will have given the possibility serious thought speaks volumes. Something needs to give and that the club’s hierarchy has been steadfast that star names will not be sold points to where ties will be severed when a disappointing campaign runs its course.
Make no mistake, this was another damaging setback for Benitez.
Liverpool showed on Sunday they can compete with the champions on any given day, but their best results have been the freak ones. Tottenham and United at home, Aston Villa and Everton away. Otherwise, the under-achievement has been unrelenting.
Benitez may yet welcome the chance to escape a job that has undoubtedly lost some of its appeal because of the weighty expectations that he feels are out of kilter with the resources.
Gerrard has struggled to exert himself, stymied by the shortcomings of Lucas and Mascherano, who seemed to take it as a personal affront that Nemanja Vidic had been sent off three times in succession in this fixture and not him.
There was no doubting that he started tugging at Antonio Valencia way outside the box, but loosening his grip only as the tussle reached the area allowed Howard Webb to indulge in a favourite pastime because this was the fifth penalty he has given United over his past eight games at Old Trafford.
It was not the sight of Carragher and Gary Neville coming nose to nose like two proud tribal chiefs that screamed loudest, nor even Ferguson and Benitez jousting on the touchline.
Rather, it was Carragher’s angry shove on Mascherano as the ramifications of his team -mate’s mindless actions sunk in.
There has been too much blaming of one another. The changes must not stop there.
Wayne Rooney profits from a late slip by Martin Skrtel, controversially now ahead of Jamie Carragher in the pecking order, to plunder the only goal which carries Manchester United back to the Premier League summit and leaves Liverpool nine points adrift in fifth.
The title is just a distant dream. Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, who were persuaded to stay at Anfield just a few months earlier by the promise of new signings, cut disillusioned figures.
The camera pans to a dejected David Silva, who remained in his tracksuit throughout having failed to impress since an £18million move from Valencia.
Afterwards, Benitez berates the Rhone Group, already at loggerheads with Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and whose £20m injection of capital pales into insignificance compared to the £80m spree that Roman Abramovich sanctioned at Chelsea in the summer. Liverpool supporters are mutinous. Again.
If something like that particular scenario is not to come to pass, then monumental decisions need to be taken at Anfield at the end of the season. And in that sense, yesterday’s defeat in the self-styled Theatre of Dreams might even be a blessing.
It will be difficult for the Liverpool supporters, who headed back along the M62 smarting from their first reversal at the hands of their most bitter rivals in four games, to accept as much as the horrible memory of Torres’ fluffed chance in the final seconds of normal time lingered.
Yet that is the stark reality that not even salvaging fourth place, a distant dream today, will cure.
Liverpool’s season is at the point where any glorious highs like the one they briefly imagined here, before Javier Mascherano brainlessly decided to offer Sir Alex Ferguson’s side a helping hand, can be seen as papering over cracks and should not be confused with mending them.
Anfield needs a fresh start because this club is stuck in a cycle, a vicious circle that will continue to whirl until major changes take hold.
Whether it is Benitez who leaves – expensive for a club so paranoid about finances – remains to be seen. Whether it is Gerrard or maybe even Torres – whose departures would raise funds unlikely to be plentiful by other means – is an alternative.
That all three at various times, and probably on the coach ride back to Melwood yesterday, will have given the possibility serious thought speaks volumes. Something needs to give and that the club’s hierarchy has been steadfast that star names will not be sold points to where ties will be severed when a disappointing campaign runs its course.
Make no mistake, this was another damaging setback for Benitez.
Liverpool showed on Sunday they can compete with the champions on any given day, but their best results have been the freak ones. Tottenham and United at home, Aston Villa and Everton away. Otherwise, the under-achievement has been unrelenting.
Benitez may yet welcome the chance to escape a job that has undoubtedly lost some of its appeal because of the weighty expectations that he feels are out of kilter with the resources.
Gerrard has struggled to exert himself, stymied by the shortcomings of Lucas and Mascherano, who seemed to take it as a personal affront that Nemanja Vidic had been sent off three times in succession in this fixture and not him.
There was no doubting that he started tugging at Antonio Valencia way outside the box, but loosening his grip only as the tussle reached the area allowed Howard Webb to indulge in a favourite pastime because this was the fifth penalty he has given United over his past eight games at Old Trafford.
It was not the sight of Carragher and Gary Neville coming nose to nose like two proud tribal chiefs that screamed loudest, nor even Ferguson and Benitez jousting on the touchline.
Rather, it was Carragher’s angry shove on Mascherano as the ramifications of his team -mate’s mindless actions sunk in.
There has been too much blaming of one another. The changes must not stop there.
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