Before the start of today’s game i had firm belief that we could go to Old Trafford and get the three points.

We were on a run of seven straight wins and in Gerrard and Torres we have players that can score against any defence in the world.

The new formation seemed to be working and allowing strength in the middle of the park and allowed Gerrard to get forward much more in support of Torres.

The game kicked off and we actually went at Man United and looked like we may be getting ready to enjoy a superb afternoon. This all ended though after only seven minutes.

Carragher mis-judged a pass and Rooney found himself clean through and had the Man United striker gone down it would have been a penalty and a potential sending off for Carragher.

 From that moment on we stopped playing. Man United stepped up a gear and controlled possession and it wasn’t any real surprise to see them take the lead, although the scorer was a shock.

Mascherano got himself booked early in the first half and should really have stayed away from the referee but thanks to the emotion of the game allowed himself to lose discipline and kept reminding Bennett that he had yet to book a Manchester United player.

When Torres was repeatedly fouled i expected finally a yellow card to be brandished but instead the ref, Steve Bennett decided to book Torres himself for complaining about been kicked.

This decision prompted a reaction from Mascherano and although Alonso tried to stop him he asked the ref ‘whats happening’. This act of petulance prompted the referee to once again produce a yellow card which was Mascherano’s second of the afternoon and a subsequent red card followed.

For me it was a crazy decision as Steve Bennett should have just told Mascherano why Torres had been booked and told the Liverpool midfielder to go away. This act by Bennett will not have done him any favours however as he already as a reputation as been whistle happy and seems to have taken the mantle from Graham Poll of the referee who likes to be centre of attention.

The Mascherano incident only masked what was a very poor performance by all of the Liverpool team.

Players who you can normally rely on in Pepe Reina, Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres had pretty quiet games and it seemed only the Manchester United players who actually wanted to win today’s match.

For me the Liverpool keeper was at fault for two of Man Uniteds goals, although he did save another couple of efforts but Pepe seemed un-characteristic in his lack of confidence today and hopefully he will get todays game out of his system as we have some very important matches coming up, starting next week with Everton