SUNDAY TIMES
Liverpool won the grudge match but the Kop lost its reputation for sporting behaviour yesterday, when Alan Smith was removed from this fifth round FA Cup tie on a stretcher to choruses of "Hey, Arne Riise, I wanna know how you broke his leg."
Liverpool fans have adopted the old Bruce Chanel song, Hey Baby, to salute goals scored by their Norwegian favourite, John Arne Riise. On this occasion, however, it was used to taunt the opposition after Smith had sustained a fractured left leg and dislocated ankle in the act of blocking Riise’s 89th-minute free kick.
What Sir Alex Ferguson described as "the worst injury I’ve ever seen" was a sickening finale to a fractious afternoon of seven bookings when legitimate competitiveness threatened to give way to something unacceptable. There is real enmity between these two teams and their fans, and passions had been inflamed by the corresponding fixture in the league at Old Trafford last month, when United scored a last-minute winner and their captain, Gary Neville, overdid his celebrations in front of the Liverpool supporters, for which he was charged with incitement by the Football Association.
Harry Kewell and Fernando Morientes, among others, had fanned the flames by saying that scores were going to be settled, with revenge the order of the day, and it was apparent throughout that Liverpool were as "up for it" as it is possible to get. Immediately before the kick-off, their supporters launched into You’ll Never Walk Alone with a volume intended to intimidate, and Neville was booed every time he was in contact with the ball.
The full-back, celebrating his 31st birthday yesterday, has brought much of this unpopularity upon himself, but nobody should have to endure obscene abuse, in this case about his mother, that United players seem to attract — witness David and Victoria Beckham.
For the Liverpool players and their manager, Rafael Benitez, it was a shame that this horrific threat to poor Smith’s career should overshadow an impressive professional performance.
Incredibly, it was 1898 when Liverpool last beat their great rivals at Anfield in the FA Cup, and they went about their work here like men on a mission.
The match was won and lost in midfield, where Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher were lightweight and easy meat for Steven Gerrard and Dietmar Hamann.
TELEGRAPH
Every meeting between these two sides represents such a heavyweight clash of history and emotion that Michael Buffer, the American MC, ought to stand in the centre circle beforehand and bellow his trademark: "Let's Get Ready To Rumble."
That was exactly what this was - a slugfest, a rumble in the Anfield jungle rather than an exhibition of football's art. And in squeezing out a win more comfortable than the scoreline suggests, Liverpool overcame whole tomes of recent and ancient history, having last knocked United out of the FA Cup here in 1898, before Manchester United had changed their name from Newton Heath.
The United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has declared this his favourite fixture because of the history, though its appeal may start to wane if this result represents a shift in the balance of power between the old rivals from the opposite ends of the East Lancs Road.
Liverpool looked to have the measure of United for much of last month's Premier League game at Old Trafford until Rio Ferdinand's late winner. But this time there was no sting in the tail, but something more agonising and heartbreaking as Alan Smith, one of United's substitutes, was carried off in the 88th minute with a broken left leg and dislocated ankle. It seems certain to end his season and his World Cup hopes with England.
United players Ruud van Nistelrooy and goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar were visibly distressed by an injury that Ferguson described as the worst he had seen, while Liverpool's Rafael Benitez said it took some of the gloss off his team's victory.
It was a freak injury, Smith's leg crumbling under him as he blocked John Arne Riise's free kick. But even a pacifist like Harry Kewell got caught up in the fighting mood of the occasion when almost bundling Gary Neville into the crowd in the opening minutes, which surprisingly did not draw a yellow card from referee Howard Webb.
It was yellow in more ways than one; Kewell knowing that he was guaranteeing approval from home fans with a foul on Neville, public enemy No 1 on Merseyside even before his protracted celebration in front of Liverpool fans at Old Trafford, for which he faces sentencing by the Football Association on Tuesday. Given the disgusting chant about his mother here, the charge seems harsh, some Liverpool fans even topping that obscenity by taunting Smith as he lay on the turf. "We get too carried away by shouts from the crowd. What do you expect?" Neville said.
INDIE
The gentleman from Hertfordshire who wrote to The Times yesterday expressing his incomprehension at football's tribal loyalties would doubtless have been more bewildered than ever by the sound and the fury at Anfield yesterday. The noise was unrelenting and the passion ubiquitous as English football's greatest rivals locked horns, but long before the smoke had cleared after six yellow cards and a single goal it was evident that Sir Alex Ferguson's hope that "we'll be talking about good football afterwards" had been unfulfilled.
All Ferguson had to discuss were a couple of half-chances and a horrific accidental injury to Alan Smith just before the finish. United players catching sight of the damage held their heads in their hands, and it was later confirmed as a broken leg and dislocated ankle. "It's the worst I've ever seen," Ferguson said. "Obviously it's a big blow, but that sums up our season. You need a bit of luck in the Cup and I think it went against us."
Like the goalless draw here in the Premiership five months ago and Manchester United's late, undeserved victory at Old Trafford last month, the quality of the football was disappointing. United bore the greater share of blame for that, failing to respond to Peter Crouch's 19th-minute goal in the manner of a team seeking a third successive FA Cup final and on a run of six victories in seven games.
As 6,500 United followers drifted away afterwards, the name of Roy Keane must have been on many lips. Smith's competitive edge, which will now be missing for the rest of the season, might have been expected to win him a place in midfield from the start, but Ferguson went for an unbalanced quartet with Ryan Giggs and Kieran Richardson in the centre and Cristiano Ronaldo out on the left. Darren Fletcher pushed infield from the right, leaving a gap outside him that Harry Kewell could have done more to exploit, especially after shaking Gary Neville up with a highly popular foul in the first three minutes.
Sir Alex Ferguson's anger and frustration turned to agony at Anfield yesterday when Alan Smith suffered serious injuries shortly before the end of his Manchester United side's 1-0 defeat by Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Ferguson, who had to do without Rio Ferdinand in the centre of his defence because of a hamstring injury, watched Liverpool score with a 19th-minute header by Peter Crouch that went in via both posts, and then saw Smith suffer a broken left leg and dislocated ankle with only two minutes remaining.
"It is a bad one," Ferguson said of Smith's injury, suffered when he threw himself to block a shot by John Arne Riise. "He has gone to hospital, it looks very long-term - it is one of the worst I have seen. Obviously it's a big blow, but that sums up our season."
Smith's season is over, and gone are his lingering hopes of going to the World Cup with England. Ferguson was angered by his side's performance in the first half and frustrated by the second half, which he thought United dominated.
"They had one shot on goal, which was saved by [Edwin] Van der Sar before their winner, and they only need to play for five minutes because they keep such a tight ship at the back," he said.
OBSERVER
You could get long odds on Harry Kewell being the first player to foul Gary Neville in this highly charged Cup tie, which is why there were a few knowing looks when the mild-mannered Australia midfielder dumped the Manchester United captain on his backside in under three minutes. You could have got even longer odds six months ago on Wigan Athletic standing between United and any silverware at all this season, yet that is the situation with the Carling Cup final coming up next weekend. Unless United win in Cardiff, in a competition Sir Alex Ferguson has never rated highly, they will be without a trophy and with no more to play for before the end of February. After beating United in the FA Cup for the first time in 85 years, Liverpool will feel they can go all the way. They will probably need to get past Chelsea at some point if they are going to lift the trophy, but as the fans gleefully taunting their rivals with five-digit salutes, printed placards and even inflatable versions of the number five remember all too clearly, anything is possible and Liverpool are still advancing on two major fronts.
They will, however, have to improve on this level of performance if they are going to astonish the world again. For all the passion and commitment on display, the afternoon could be summed up in six words. Fantastic atmosphere. Great antagonism. Ordinary game. Someone said it resembled an Old Firm encounter, all sound and fury with precious little football being played. That was a little harsh - there were glimpses of quality, especially in the first half - although it was a better advertisement for North-West rivalry than top-four standards. Even at that level the occasion was somewhat soured near the end, when unlucky substitute Alan Smith suffered a gruesome broken leg and heard the Kop gloating over his misfortune to the tune of their favourite John Arne Riise song.