Oh, Stevie. What a way to say goodbye. Liverpool's captain did at least on this occasion keep his footing. Unfortunately this was at the expense of Ander Herrera's shin, on which Steven Gerrard's foot rested briefly, 38 seconds into what was a final appearance against the dominant domestic force of Gerrard's almost-but-not-quite Premier League career.
It wasn’t a vicious stamp, but it was enough to ensure he was sent off in the opening minute of the second half at Anfield, a horrendous moment for Liverpool’s departing captain in what was by the end a narrow defeat.
No doubt a great deal of cod-psychology will be devoted to Gerrard’s split-second motives, the theatre of departure, a Lear-ish sense of fading powers and crumbling fiefdoms.
Over-zealous attempt
But the fact is his red card for an over-zealous attempt to reverse the momentum of the game also seemed to fit with the tactical drift of two contrasting systems as, once again in the spring sunshine, Brendan Rodgers suffered a bruising day at the office against A-list managerial opposition.
Louis van Gaal will have relished this victory as much as any of his players, as United's targeted direct football, combined with some swift-breaking transitions and two sublime goals from Juan Mata made the difference against a Liverpool team that only showed in glimpses their finely-grooved attacking football of the last few weeks.
United played the more rugged football, bullying Liverpool's midfield at times and providing a genuinely painful one-man horror show as Emre Can was for 60 minutes repeatedly pummelled in the air by Marouane Fellaini.
With this in mind it is hard not to find a little synergy between Gerrard’s red card and United’s command of midfield. Gerrard had been introduced in place of Adam Lallana with a clear detail in mind judging by his first act, a thrilling but slightly wild tackle on Mata.
Seconds later he clashed with Herrera and was left trooping off in a daze. The suspicion had always been that the physical battle between Can and Fellaini would be key, with Fellaini’s bruising, aerial take on the inside-left position always likely to pick at Can’s weak spot as a central defender.
The first “rapid aerial transition” towards Fellaini’s head arrived in the opening seconds as Liverpool were for a while bypassed in midfield.
Nestle
The Fellaini chest remains one of the mini-marvels of the modern game, an adhesive, velvety-soft cradle, like an ancient baseball catcher’s mitt, into which the ball just seems to nestle from any angle.
It was almost painful to see Fellaini drift malevolently towards Can, who must have found himself wondering if, all things considered, this was really what he signed up for, a player schooled in pass and move and engineered to German academy standards being battered under the high ball by an angular Belgian repeatedly snaffling the ball into that marsupial pouch he appears to keep somewhere below his chin.
It had become clear almost from the start Rodgers had spiked his own guns by playing Sterling in a withdrawn right wing-back position. From there Liverpool’s most direct attacking threat was reduced to a scuttling irrelevance, taking throw-ins and tackling by the corner flag.
The change at half-time seemed the right one, with Gerrard on to add steel in the middle and Sterling pushed further forward. Then came Gerrard’s departure: a moment of witlessness, but symptomatic of a team that looked physically outgunned from the start.
