The sweet taste of victory

The papers give us enormous credit for strolling to victory against Liverpool yesterday.

Oh. Sorry. I'm living in a fantasy.

No, Liverpool Implode seems to be the headline of the day. Or some sort of Bennett gifted us the game angle is quite popular.

I'm going to start with this link to the BBC website which has an embedded video of Benitez's post match interview. I'll post it without comment, because Benitez says so much himself.
The Guardian report here pretty much encapsulates the trend today:

Manchester United edged closer to the Premier League title by ravaging a self-destructive Liverpool side at Old Trafford today. Headers by Wes Brown and Cristiano Ronaldo, followed by a thunderous strike from Nani gave Sir Alex Ferguson's men three goals, but the three points also came courtesy of impotent Liverpool forward play, mistakes from Pepe Reina and a silly first-half dismissal for Javier Mascherano.

Emphasis fully on Liverpool here.

Begrudging praise for us from The Times:

United were deserved winners, although Rafael Benitez's side might feel they were served an injustice when Javier Mascherano, the Liverpool midfielder, received a contentious red card in the first half.

After spending the first 8 paragraphs of their match report on the Mascherano sending off, The Telegraph bizarrely then admit that, "That decision did not cost Liverpool the game". So the only reason to concentrate on it so is to make it appear more important than it was and trivialise our performance. Although Kudos must be given to The Telegraph for making Ronaldo man of the match and pointing out his 95% pass completion (Paul Scholes had an amazing 98 successful passes out of 103), against The Independent's judgement that, "It was Mascherano who most proved his worth, reducing Cristiano Ronaldo to a mere mortal for once", and against the view of their own Alan Hansen:

Of the four major forward players on the pitch at Old Trafford - Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo - only Rooney played well while Rio Ferdinand proved he knows how to deal with Torres.

Everyone obviously just puts Ronaldo in there to perpetuate their own myth that he's not a big game player.
Hansen's words on the sending off are also completely what you'd expect - wrong:

A strong referee would have dealt with the incident completely differently. He would have gone to Gerrard, as the Liverpool captain, and to Mascherano and indicated that one more example of backchat would see the player dismissed. And the pity is that Bennett got most of the decisions of a big afternoon right, but it is the one he got wrong that he will be remembered for.

I think that with the amount of "backchat" (why not call it dissent?) he'd already received it was fairly obvious he'd have had enough. And frankly the challenge that immediately preceded the two bookings for decent was completely innocuous, only Liverpool players would have the temerity to try and get someone booked for that challenge. This fact also seems to have been lost in the reports, everyone citing the "treatment" that Torres was receiving. He was fouled a couple of time sure, but never anything that could be labelled "treatment".

A table in The Telegraph shows that Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick were the "most active" players of the weekend. Explaining our dominance and shaming the untouchable Stevie G (who completed a mere 28 of 44 passes - probably about his average for the season...)

Quick links to Sir Alex's comments - The Times - The Telegraph

After slagging off David Pleat previously I think I owe him the final word for a good article, actually praising us, without too many reservations:

Liverpool were certainly not helped by the indecision of José Reina or the erratic officiating of Steve Bennett but Manchester United's use of the forward ball was more penetrative and purposeful from the start.

Liverpool, playing to feet, contrasted with the more urgent United who never missed an opportunity to play a pass beyond the opposition defence. Wayne Rooney was looking for the space between and behind Liverpool's centre-backs and was denied three times by Reina when he got into those positions.