EPL: Limp, lethargic United

LIVERPOOL 1

(Daniel Sturridge 4)

MAN UNITED 0

David Moyes will wake up this morning to face the most important 24 hours of his management career. 

The final day of the transfer market will make or break Manchester United's season and will go some way to determining their manager's longevity.

If they don't spend big - and spend wisely - then the Red Devils can kiss their Premier League crown goodbye.

Titles are not always won in a single game, particularly so early in the season, but they can be lost.

United's startlingly inept performance at Anfield - both on the pitch and in the dugout - was the most graphic reminder yet that their current crop are not equipped to mount a successful title defence against much improved challengers.

Liverpool's 1-0 victory was thoroughly deserved, but Brendan Rodgers' boys are still men in the making.

United will face trickier opponents.

Much will be made of the Reds' winning 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 for the first time in 101 years ago and their top-four credentials were undoubtedly validated on Sunday.

But they remain an improving side in transition.

Iago Aspas and Philippe Coutinho were virtual spectators and Daniel Sturridge struggled to have any impact after his decisive goal.

And yet, they had more than enough to take the lead and hold off a limp, lethargic, pedestrian United with little difficulty.

If the day was memorable for the hosts, it was horrific for the visitors.

Liverpool supporters had barely taken their seats after applauding the 100th anniversary of Bill Shankly's birth when they were off their backsides and celebrating the opener.

Rio Ferdinand lost his man Daniel Agger at a corner.

The centre back was granted more room than Miley Cyrus twerking to nod the ball goalwards.

And Sturridge reacted fastest.

The striker celebrated his 24th birthday in the fourth minute by flicking the home side ahead. Shankly would have admired the instinctive improvisation.

Sturridge's poaching was nigh on perfect. Ferdinand was left with egg on his face.

Still, the striker's effortless finish was his 11th in nine appearances.

Luis who?

The Reds were relentless in the opening half, leaping onto the Anfield turf with enough enthusiasm to suggest Rodgers had conducted his team talk while his charges sat on rusty spikes.

Slow

United's lack of enterprise and uncharacteristic plodding hardly helped.

Steven Gerrard and Lucas Leiva bossed Tom Cleverley and Michael Carrick so much all that was missing was The Godfather theme tune.

Frustrations threatened to boil over when Cleverley was booked for his late, late tackle on Coutinho.

He got there as quickly as he could.

For most of the game, Robin van Persie saw less of the ball than the ball-boys and he joined Cleverley in the book for a petty lunge at Agger. Carrick wasn't far behind.

United were keeping referee Andre Marriner busy, but they certainly weren't troubling Simon Mignolet.

The most troubled man was RVP.

The usually upbeat Dutchman has seldom appeared so disgruntled and irritated.

He snapped at tackles, pushed defenders, whinged to the referee and rarely stopped complaining about his perceived misfortunes.

Wayne Rooney wasn't involved, but RVP did a fine impression of the injured England striker.

With no service in the final third, he was a passing stranger; a frustrated castaway cut adrift around the penalty box and desperately calling for help.

No one in the dugout answered his SOS and he trudged off at the end the angriest man inside Anfield.

As expected, United woke up from their slumber after the inevitable Moyes mauling at half-time, but the possession rarely translated into anything penetrative.

Liverpool were penned back into a reluctant counter-attacking strategy, but Mignolet was not called upon to make a significant save.

The only real highlight inside his penalty box came with Danny Welbeck's farcical dive shortly before the hour.

His effort suited Swan Lake, but not this occasion. It was never a penalty. It possibly was a yellow card.

Finally, in the 77th minute, Mignolet was forced to make a save worthy of his reputation. Substitute Nani cut inside from the right flank and dispatched a missile of a strike from 20 metres. The ball swerved but not far away from Mignolet's palms.

Late show

Sir Alex Ferguson's sides, even when they lost at Anfield, rarely waited until almost the 80th minute to produce a worthwhile shot on target.

Such conservatism would not have been tolerated from the former matriarch of Manchester.

The failing would've been addressed much earlier.

United waited for a reaction from the dugout, but it came too late.

Moyes didn't make an attacking substitution until the 63rd minute, when Nani replaced the ineffective - and practically anonymous - Ashley Young.

As the clock ticked down, Moyes cut an increasingly disconsolate figure in the dugout.

Raheem Sterling even had a chance to compound the humiliation in the 95th minute, but his pile-driver was acrobatically tipped over by David de Gea.

This is not the United way. This was not the Ferguson way.

Past and present players have long highlighted the old man's incandescent rage if his team tumbled at Anfield - and his unbridled joy if they triumphed.

He loathed Liverpool.

Their history and pedigree fuelled his personal ambition. Defeat was rarely tolerated. But a lack of creative endeavour was indefensible.

That losing feeling was not a familiar one at Ferguson's United.

But it might be under Moyes' management if he doesn't spend big today.

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