Manchester United are Liverpool's bogey team

By Jim White
Last Updated: 1:14am GMT 22/03/2008


When Alex Ferguson arrived at Old Trafford in the autumn of 1986, his task, he said at the time, was to "knock Liverpool off their bloody perch" (except he didn't use the word "bloody").
Even if it were intemperately made, it was hard to argue with the validity of his analysis. The Anfield club were in the midst of the most glittering period of trophy accumulation in English football history. They were winning everything with a polished ease, rebuilding teams without disturbance, dominating all they surveyed. They were the team to beat.
The odd thing is - as a keen football historian like Ferguson must have known even as he made those remarks - beating Liverpool was never a problem for Manchester United in the era he took over. Bournemouth, Oxford United, Notts County: United could lose to all of them on a regular basis. Liverpool, however, was a different story. Even in times of league penury, there was usually a point or three on offer against the Football League and European champions. And it has been much like that ever since.
It is something that sticks in the craw of every Liverpool follower that their most hateful rivals double up as their bogey team. The statistics over the past few decades reveal that England's version of the Real Madrid against Barcelona superclasico is not only the most bitter inter-city rivalry in our sporting life, it is also among the most one-sided fixtures in the football calendar.
In the 1980s, when Anfield was filled with silverware and Old Trafford echoed merely to a grandiose self-delusion, United had the better of almost every encounter. The decade's statistics reveal that the Mancunian reds won 11, drew 11 and lost only four of their games against their Merseyside counterparts. Clearly, United players relished the idea of being plucky no-hopers, of rising to the occasion and proving themselves the equal - if only for 90 minutes - of the best around. Players like Norman Whiteside made their name by stamping their authority over Liverpool and - in the case of Steve McMahon - their toes. In 1985, United's then-manager, Ron Atkinson, cheekily went so far as to suggest he had discovered an infallible, if unconventional, tactical approach to beating the champions: man-mark their centre-back, Alan Hansen.
The depressing story continued on for Liverpudlians even as the balance of power shifted. For some reason, as football's epicentre relocated 35 miles down the road and United rose to the ascendant, Liverpool could not reverse the trend. Maybe their players could not come to terms with the idea that they were now the underdog. Maybe their natural hauteur could not accommodate the idea of slumming it. Whatever the cause, in the Nineties United won 10, drew seven and lost five against Liverpool. And the wins included an FA Cup final in 1996 and a fourth round in 1999 when the Liverpool team came within an ace of destroying their enemy's tilt at the Treble in the way that United had fouled up theirs in 1977, only for two goals in the last five minutes to cancel out all dreams of revenge.
Even more galling for the Anfield regulars is that United's heroes in many of these games have been replacements and substitutes, bit-part performers in most other fixtures, players whose careers have been largely defined by their one-off contribution against Liverpool. Russell Beardsmore, Diego Forlan and John O'Shea: none of them would expect entry in any United hall of fame, yet all three have been match winners in the virulent battle for north-western supremacy. A battle which always seems to go one way. If Liverpool play well, United win. If Liverpool play badly, United win. If Liverpool need to win to stifle United's trophy ambitions, United win. Only once, in 1992, when the Kop chanted "Leeds, Leeds" to show they wanted anybody but United to take the League title, did Liverpool manage to knock their rivals off their perch. Latterly, that has been a job they have been obliged to leave to Arsenal and Chelsea.
Unlike those who employ him, Rafael Benitez is more than aware of the details of his club's illustrious heritage. He will know of the statistical gap in his record book. Sticking a list of match results on the wall of the visitors' dressing room could provide no greater motivation to proud Liverpudlians like Steven Gerrard, who endeared himself to everyone on the Kop and beyond with his assertion in his autobiography that "during 90 minutes of football, I want United to die". Surely, he will say to them, now is the time to break the sequence. Equally, Sir Alex will be assisted by the Liverpool-loathing Gary Neville, when he reminds his team of the weight of history insisting they don't yield.
Not that Fernando Torres and Cristiano Ronaldo, Javier Mascherano and Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Nemanja Vidic exactly need much in the way of verbal encouragement to get their competitive juices flowing. Indeed with such tension, such anticipation, such meaning washing around tomorrow's game, the statistician would suggest it all adds up to one certain outcome: a dull goalless draw.

www.telegraph.co.uk/jwhite
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utusanLFC :
all those silly romantics about Man.U will be changed tonight when LFC beat them at Odd Trafford...