Four-goal Liverpool Crush United to Keep Title Race Alive

What a week for Rafa Benítez. A four-goal victory over Real Madrid followed by four goals to beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. Life can scarcely get any sweeter, and it could easily have been five.

Everything looked fairly straightforward for United when they were awarded a penalty in front of the Stretford End after 22 minutes, exactly the sort of thing that makes Benítez believe the world is against him. After being feted as regally as the King of Spain when Liverpool demolished Real Madrid in midweek the Liverpool manager was back to being a fat Spanish waiter here, at least in the eyes of the home fans. He could have no real complaints about the penalty decision, Ji-Sung Park probably wasn't going anywhere but was definitely caught by Pepe Reina after reaching Carlos Tevez's pass, and Cristiano Ronaldo gave United the lead from the spot.

So far so predictable, yet Liverpool, and Fernando Torres in particular, had no intention of following the usual script. When Nemanja Vidic made the mistake of letting a long clearance from Martin Skrtel bounce, Torres was through him in a flash, surprising the defender with his pace and coolly clipping the ball past the advancing Edwin van der Sar. Torres embarrassed Vidic on two or three more occasions as Liverpool grew in confidence and was unluckly not to be awarded a penalty at one stage when he headed the ball past the Serbian and was manhandled to the floor.

Undeterred, Torres helped win a penalty for Liverpoool on the stroke of the interval when his measured pass into the box for Steven Gerrard tempted Patrice Evra into a rash foul. This time there was even less doubt about the decision, and Gerrard himself stepped up to send his side in with a deserved half-time lead.

Liverpool held on to it surprisingly comfortably in the second half, with Wayne Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo all proving ineffectual up front and United coming no nearer to an equaliser than a couple of handling mistakes by Reina. After 70 minutes Sir Alex Ferguson sent on the cavalry, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Dimitar Berbatov all coming on together in a rare triple substitution, but to no avail.

No sooner had United's reinforcements arrived than they went down to 10 men, Vidic completing a dismal afternoon by pulling back Gerrard to stop a clear run on goal. As if that were not bad enough, Fábio Aurélio struck cleanly to score from the free-kick to leave United clear winners, and yet there was still time for Andrea Dossena to lob Van der Sar and leave Liverpool fans celebrating in what was now a half-empty stadium.