Source: Telegraph
Rout of Manchester United has Rafael Benitez 'cracking up' with laughter
"Rafa's cracking up," they sing of Liverpool's manager. And after this the amateur psychologists might have a point. After watching his team score eight times in five days against football's two most storied opponents, even the notoriously controlled Señor Benitez will be cracking up, with joyous laughter. [LNB]The manager's instruction to his Liverpool team would have been simple enough: play like you did on Tuesday and you can beat anyone. And so they did. After Real Madrid another seemingly impregnable European institution fell to Benitez's newly rampant team: Manchester United's Old Trafford record. [LNB] Related ArticlesStunning Liverpool run riot[LNB]Liverpool's Steven Gerrard hopeful Manchester United can be caught[LNB]Liverpool's Rafael Benitez savours taste of victory against Manchester United[LNB]Rafael Benitez bets on Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to end Man Utd's run[LNB]Rafael Benitez says Liverpool deserve more credit for their Champions League exploits[LNB]With victory, reckoned the visiting captain, came the possibility that others might do Liverpool favours. "It's not very often you see Man United get beat 4-1 at home," said Steven Gerrard. "I hope this gives other teams that come to Old Trafford the belief that United can be beaten."[LNB]United weren't just beaten here. They were outsmarted, outmuscled, outpaced, subjected to the kind of rout they routinely inflict on the rest of the Premier League. When Andrea Dossena chipped Edwin van der Sar to score the visitor's fourth in injury time, United's fortress echoed to the clack of emptying seats, a noise that almost drowned out the delirious cackle emanating from the Liverpool followers of "we want five". [LNB]Benitez was in his element, standing on the edge of his technical area, yelling instruction at whoever came within earshot. He even permitted himself a brief moment to applaud Dossena's goal, before he pointed at Gerrard, then pointed at his temple. The message was simple: think, think and think again. [LNB]But for all his cerebral input, frankly, in the shape his main striker is in, his team needs no more instruction than to waft the ball in Fernando Torres's direction. He will do the rest. That was precisely what happened when, with United leading from a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, Fabio Aurelio sent a aimless punt out of the Liverpool defence. [LNB]Who would have thought such a tactic would so discomfort Nemanja Vidic? But there was the solid Serbian resembling a 10-year-old cricketer under a steepled chance in the outfield. And as he dawdled, Torres, bearing down on him with the same pace and purpose he had unleashed on Madrid, pounced. [LNB]With the single most muscular presence in the Premier League left floundering like a freshly-landed cod, Torres advanced to score. Never mind Rafa's complicated semaphore, this was route one at its most effective. [LNB]Then it happened again. A defence unbreached for longer than a Peaches Geldof marriage faltered for a second time. Patrice Evra, doing his best not to make Vidic feel alone in his error-strewn work, idled on a through-ball. [LNB]Gerrard, following Torres's lead, arrived on his heels at pace to nip the ball away. All the Frenchman could do was waft a leg in his direction and bring him down. It was a collector's item: a penalty conceded in the Premier League by Manchester United at Old Trafford, something that has not happened since Wayne Rooney was a teenager, doing his bit to help the Merseyside aged. [LNB]But Gerrard was not phased by its rarity and was quickly expanding his usual badge-kissing celebration to take in a smacker on the television camera lens. [LNB]That, though, was not the end of United misery. Even as Sir Alex Ferguson tried to sort things out by sending on Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Dimitar Berbatov, Vidic's afternoon reached its nadir. [LNB]Gerrard whipped past him before being wrestled to the ground in a manner that would not look out of place at Twickenham this afternoon. Such was the level of his shame, the big defender dashed off the moment Alan Wiley showed him the red card. He ran for the dressing room at a pace which suggested he was worried Torres would get there first. [LNB]The scale of his folly was exposed when, with United expecting Gerrard to strike, Aurelio curled in the resulting free-kick past a flat-footed Van der Sar. [LNB]United might put this down simply as a bad day at the office. But you imagine as the season reaches its climactic rush they – and Vidic in particular – will be desperate that the Champions League draw spares them an early reacquaintance with Torres. Suddenly there appears to be a major Spanish obstruction in the way of that quintuple. [LNB]
