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The Guardian 14 March 2009
A recent review of Bruce Springsteen's latest album posited that The Boss is at his best when he has something to rail against, writes Paul Hayward.
Liverpool are a bit like that. The job of league leaders suits them less well than the role of street fighters attacking the more rich and powerful.
Defiance is a deep strain in the culture on Merseyside. The Kop is a monument to resistance, in name and spirit. The defining expression of Liverpool's talent for overturning hierarchies was the great comeback in Istanbul, when they were 3-0 down to AC Milan at half-time in the 2005 Champions League final but won the game on penalties. The phoenix, more than the Liver bird, is their ornithological symbol. Only when Manchester United had pulled seven points clear in the Premier League title race did Rafa BenÃtez's men find a performance from the gods.
Whatever the odds were on Liverpool scoring eight against Real Madrid and the world and European champions inside five days, no punter would have taken them. The form book would have whispered dark truths about the post-Christmas draws with Stoke and Wigan and the defeat at Middlesbrough four days after they had beaten Real inside the Bernabeu.
Both Liverpools should go away for the weekend and try to come back as one. If they could translate their stomping form in the biggest tests to routine assignments then the 19-year wait for a domestic league title might have ended long ago. Proving that being backed into a corner is their favourite, masochistic mode, they went one down to a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty before swarming all over their oldest enemies, who have suddenly lost their sheen.
Against Internazionale in midweek, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs took a managerial rocket for their profligacy with the ball. Surrendering possession is a felony here and United were guilty of it often enough against Italy's champions to suggest that a rampant run of victories was drawing to a close.
This 4-1 thumping confirms that impression. It brought United's biggest home defeat since New Year's Day, 1992, when they were hammered by QPR. In two games, the diamond-precision of their passing has fallen away, the effervescence has dropped. This is entirely routine in a 38-game league campaign. But with Chelsea resurgent under Guus Hiddink and Liverpool back in iconoclastic mood, United will aim to bury the memory of two unconvincing displays and return to the heights of their 4-0 demolition of Fulham in the FA Cup.
That chance is only days away, because they go back to Craven Cottage on Saturday, while Liverpool face a much tougher trial at home to Aston Villa. "When you lose a game, respond. That's what we'll do," Ferguson said.
Specifically, Scholes, Giggs, Patrice Evra, Ronaldo and Michael Carrick are becalmed. Confronting Liverpool activates the self-destruct button in Nemanja Vidic, who was sent off in the corresponding fixture at Anfield and who, this time, allowed a long ball to bounce over his shoulder for Fernando Torres to score before being dismissed again for pulling Steven Gerrard down.
To be fully effective, Liverpool need Fernando Torres to be sizzling, as he was yesterday, haunting Vidic and Rio Ferdinand with twisting, flowing runs. Liverpool's equaliser may have appeared routine, but it required Torres to finish from a challenging angle against the normally impregnable Edwin van der Sar.
"Eleven v eleven, we were men today. It's not very often you see Man Utd get beat 4-1 at home," reflected Gerrard. Liverpool have now beaten Chelsea and United home and away and destroyed Real Madrid. To incite them to rebellion is fatal. "European Capital of Trophies" announced one United banner: an obvious play on Liverpool's role last year as European Capital of Culture. The joke self-detonated.
All through this campaign the probability of United drawing level with Liverpool on 18 league title wins has rumbled backstage. The red half of Merseyside still hold the initiative in European Cups won (5-3), but the 18 league championships have assumed a mighty psychological weight in the face of United's relentless advance.
Ferguson denies that levelling the score has been "a target", but it must drift through his dreams. Ending Liverpool's hegemony was his first task before Arsenal and Chelsea were lined up for the Glasgow kiss.
To the neutral it felt as if a remorseless machine had been halted, if only for a few days, and that Liverpool have recovered their poise after a couple of months of creeping neurosis. The title race became a test of character again instead of a procession.
