Liverpool     2  -  1     Manchester United
 Brown og  27′            Tevez  3′
 Babel  77′

A breakthrough win for Liverpool left Manchester United shocked as to how a team without Gerrard and Torres in the starting line-up led to a victory.

Rafael Benitez always likes to prove a point by doing controversial things that other managers wouldn’t consider doing, ridiculous squad rotation tactics, buying a player for £28m and not having him a regular starter for the first 2 months of him being there, subbing off Steven Gerrard against Everton away when the game is tied at 1-1 and 30 minutes left (the expression on Gerrard suggested no injury or fatigue), buying Robbie Keane for £20m, buing Dirk Kuyt full stop! Ok so I have gone on a bit, but all these random choices really didn’t make sense.

However, his decision and tactics against United were spot on, he got things moving well and really out thought his opposite number, the first 15 mins United were all over them, lets admit they had the better players (marginally), and some slick passing and persistence from Berbatov led to the first goal for Tevez and the Berbatov making his mark in the united shirt.

Liverpool took over after that, the strike force of United hardly got into it after that, Berbatov had completely left the game! Liverpool’s equaliser was an own goal, but it was a deserved goal as they pushed quite hard to United’s goal, and a silly error from Van der Sar and 1-1.

From then on it was all Liverpool, the work rate was brilliant and it left a pained expression on Ferguson’s face as he couldn’t really do much to stop them. Though Liverpool had possession they still didn’t look clinical in front of goal, without Torres and Keane still miss firing, there really isn’t a goal scorer.

The final goal was a shocking mistake by Ryan Giggs, persistence from Mascherano and Kuyt set up Ryan Bable for the finish and the game, with 10 mins left United didn’t look as though they would get back into it.

A great victory for Liverpool but it was through sheer work rate and not much more, will this be good enough to challenge? Will Man Utd reach to the level of Chelsea? This is going to be an interesting battle, will Arsenal fit into the frame? This top four is looking very confusing at the moment, but with Chelsea’s win at Man City leaves them as the hot favourites early on for the league.