Manchester United secured three vital points with a 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Old Trafford.
Two early second half goals from Wayne Rooney secured a victory for the Red Devils, with Luis Suarez replying for the visitors with a late consolation effort.
It wasn’t the only incident that the Uruguayan was involved in though.
Controversy
There has been lots of discussion about pre-match handshakes in recent weeks and today’s produced a moment of controversy. As the two sets of players conducted the pre-match handshake Liverpool striker Luis Suarez refused to shake Patrice Evra’s hand.
The United player reacted and tried to grab the Uruguayan’s arm. United defender Rio Ferdinand also decided not to shake the Liverpool’s strikers hand. No doubt this saga will run and run. The unfortunate incident has rather distracted from the very important victory that United achieved.
Vital
The victory took Manchester United back to the top of the Premier League table. It was a crucial victory after the Red Devils drew 3-3 at Chelsea last weekend. Sir Alex Ferguson’s men can’t afford anymore slip ups this season with Manchester City ready to take advantage of any mistakes.
United’s rivals still have a game in-hand but are currently a point behind the champions. City face a trip to Aston Villa on Sunday. It won’t be an easy game for the Citizens but it was important that United didn’t fall too far behind Roberto Mancini’s men.
Toothless
Liverpool was pretty toothless in attack and struggled to make an impact on the United defence until the final minutes of the game. Kenny Dalglish brought on the likes of Andy Carroll and Craig Bellamy from the substitutes bench but neither made much of a difference to the game.
Liverpool’s goal came from a mistake from Rio Ferdinand, who laid the ball on a plate for Luis Suarez to score from close range. Liverpool then looked slightly more of a threat but their best chance was a Suarez header, which the Uruguayan headed over. The referee’s assistant flagged for offside and the effort wouldn’t have counted.
If Liverpool are to claim a top four place the Reds will need to find more of a cutting edge. Suarez has looked Liverpool’s biggest threat this season and he will have to be at his best if Liverpool are to challenge for those Champions League places.
Shame
The meetings between these two giants of English football have been ruined by the Luis Suarez/Patrice Evra saga in recent games. There has always been a rivalry because of the history of the two clubs and the location of the two clubs.
The racism row has increased the animosity between the two sets of fans. These things happen in football and without these incidents football would be less interesting but I think this drama needs to be put to bed for the sake of both clubs.
Luis Suarez isn’t doing himself or the club any good with his decision not to shake Evra’s hand. If he would have shaken Evra’s hand it would have taken a lot of the sting out of the whole situation and reduced the controversy.
Drama
Like a lot of these big clashes it wasn’t the best game of football but it was full of drama and controversy. These sorts of incidents do increase interest in the Premier League but its all for the wrong reasons.
Should Luis Suarez have shaken Patrice Evra’s hand?
No one can answer that question David as only Suarez & Evra know the truth. It is easy to say he should have or not, but its a private story which people speculate a lot about. As a professionnal, you have to shake hands, but when it becomes personnal, profesionnalism is quickly forgotten. I don’t think anyone can answer your question except the 2 involved players. Boring 1st half but a more entertaining second with 3 goals. Let’s hope we can talk about the football side of the story next time.
Suares should not be blamed for refusing hand shake from Evra.you all know what happened he is trying to avoid any further accusation of racism.Luis keep on focus
You can tell that Evra was actually trying to put it behind him. He wanted to shake Suarez’s hand. Suarez, however, seemed to have decided to act like a 10 year old, at best. First being like that to Evra (which is self-inflicted to begin with, calling Evra negrito when Evra comes from a country with a history of racial tension), then his petulance during the game.
Just think, if they had shaken hands, at least pretended to respect each other for a second, we wouldn’t have heard anything about their attitudes before the match.
The boys amongst boys age old adage what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch is outdated. It doesn’t condone racist or other hurtful remarks. It looked like an admission of guilt by Suarez and now he again acted like a five year old, as he certainly did on occasion in his Ajax time as well. He just has to grow up, because he can play.
Suarez wants to be a STAR and he’s doing it in the most awful way.
He’s another talented butthole. I thought we had seen enough when Balotelli claimed to be second to only Messi in the entire world after he scored a hat trick. Now we got another petulant 10 year old in the EPL.
suarez apologized after because he knows he was wrong… Anyone who defends what he did (refusing to shake evra’s hand) is not right. Wanted to use some choice words to describe mr. Suarez, but i will refrain from using such language here.
Look over the videos and you will notice that as Suearez stepped up to shake Suarez’s hand Patrice decided to lower his hand, thinking he didn’t want to shake hands Suarez skipped him. Still foolish of Suarez, not shaking Evra’s hand.
Suarez stepped up to shake Evra’s hand*
@cloud and russ ru oh gosh we meet again and still not on the sam side,werz ur buddy brad anyway i have very little problems with what suarez did and people making it racial is blown out of proportion if he is the balotelli is darker anyway why duznt he do the same it was personal bt i thnk evra provoked it like michael sed evra taunted and put his hand down and suarez skipped him
i am a true reds supporter for 17 years now and am not using that as a stunt to support suarez am just saying everyone would hate him enuf to see him nt play for liverpool i think evra was childish to blow the negredo issue out the water he js got a bit confused by being dribbled by suarez on that day