United Survive Early Scares To Take Points (Liverpool 0 - Manchester United 1)

Whilst it's still too early in the season to dub this game as a title decider, we did fairly well to stamp our authority in the standings by wrestling top stop from Arsenal, albeit for a couple of hours. What's more important with this 1-0 victory was the psychological edge we have over Liverpool, whom I deemed since the start of the season as our closest rivals to the title challenge.

Not to take anything from Arsenal's fine run till now, but they are quite frankly a team that's out performing themselves. I'm not dismissing Arsenal's title credentials, but they will only go as far as that kid, Fabregas will carry them. Chelsea's the last to form the quartet, but both themselves and Arsenal will have to contend with losing crucial players to the Africans Cup of Nations. Thus I fully expect them to fall off the pace during that period.

As for today's game, we rode out luck early this game after Van der Sar made two uncharacteristic errors to almost gift Liverpool with a couple of goals. Had it not been for Anderson's and Evra's timely goal mouth clearances, we would have been staring down the barrel of a gun.

Neither side played to their potential as the game was played at a frenzy pace, leading to an error-filled game in the middle of the park. Neither side could hold on to possession for any sustainable period of time, with both sets of midfielders cancelling one another out.

The game took abit of ingenuity from a set piece to open the scoring. 2 minutes before the whistle signalling the end of the first half, United won a corner. Insteading of whipping the ball into the box, Giggs found Rooney at the edge of the box (ala Sheringham).

Failing to pick up Rooney from the box, almost the entire Liverpool defense panicked and collapsed on Rooney. Rooney, on the other hand, was no Sheringham, and he scuffed the shot. The ball fell to the ever alert Tevez and he needed no invitation to scoop it into the empty net. 1-0 to the good guys!

Liverpool tried to storm back in the second half with a good amount of possession, but without a creative influence in midfield, were easy pickings for the United defenders. Our midfielders, Anderson, Hargreaves and the entire back four played their hearts out, holding Liverpools ineffective attacks at bay.

Such was Liverpool's ineffectiveness upfront that we could even afford to go a man down by bringing Mr Invisible, Carrick, on to the pick with almost 10 minutes to go. ;o)

It was nothing more than we deserved. Besides the scares Van der Sar had given us in the first half, it was apparent that Liverpool had failed yet again to meet our standards.

The squad should be well rested by next week when we face Everton at OT in a fixture-packed Christmas program.