‘Nothing, not even that dreadful mistake from Jerzy Dudek, can blind you to the real story at Anfield yesterday. That was quite simply a terrible performance from Liverpool which no goalkeeping errors could disguise. Proof that when any side start to struggle for confidence, sooner or later they will hit rock bottom.
We should start with Dudek because, as a former centre-half, I can tell you that once you start worrying about the goalkeeper behind you then the confidence drains out of the team and there is no way of coping with those kinds of mistake. As long as Dudek lives he will be unable to comprehend quite how Diego Forlan's first goal happened and he wasn't too clever with the second. It does not make him a bad goalkeeper but it does mean he has to be dropped.
People say Bruce Grobbelaar made mistakes but his arrived about once every 20 games. Liverpool fans will remember a disastrous Boxing Day performance against Manchester City in 1981. Dudek has now made four errors in five matches.
So what about the rest? Djimi Traore is a young kid who is learning all the time but the problem is that he is being switched from centre-half to left-back. His weakness is that he is just not too comfortable in possession of the ball. But it was not just Traore, you have to take the criticism collectively as well as the plaudits.
For such a
talented young international, Steven Gerrard had an awful game - I just cannot recall him losing more possession than he did yesterday.Wes Brown was easily the best player on the pitch. With six players missing from their starting line-up, United arrived with a plan and executed it perfectly. United were not quite irresistible in attack but they were unbelievably solid at the back.
They can't play any worse than that. And losing at home to United, well, it's the club you feel you have to beat at Liverpool. During my time there we lost against United at Anfield regularly, but we always won the league at a canter. That's what this team should keep in mind.’
And United too no doubt.