I watched this game through the medium of text messages; primarily from Liverpool Rob. And so if the Pool’s Panel would like to take into account my text score against Rob (with the best text being equal to one English Premier League goal) – and I think as David Moyes pointed out it suggests somethings afoot if they don’t – then we can chalk this one off as a comfortable home win, on aggregate.

I wasn’t watching the game because my selfish mum and dad wanted to see me one last time before they might never ever see me again. How selfish is that?! I had at least TWO other people WANTING to come and watch the game with me down the pub. TWO!! I’ve never felt or looked that popular in my whole life. Pure selfish.

Highlights from the text exchange included: a great ‘Pen-Ultimate’ pun from me, and an ‘in Moyes we rust’ one. Rob said somethings that I accidentally deleted straight away without reading.

All together now:

Liverpool Rob:

Usually I steer well clear of Brett’s advances around this peculiarity in the football calendar. If he gets hold of me he asks me out on a date to watch the match, because, well, we’re friends and it doesn’t matter who wins (or loses). This year I’m happy to put that theory to the test. I’ll let mum know she may need to buy a new hat.

 Now to the prediction: I usually go with the ref to be Howard Webb and a good controversial decision in favour of the hosts. Game over. However he has already doled out his quota of bad decisions against us for this season. He also has to make a few more headlines to ensure he’s on the bus to Brazil… hence I’m looking at a very red day at Old Trafford. I believe, and you can bet your house on this if you like, that Rooney will be sent off for tattooing a postage stamp onto Skrtel’s forehead, RVP for swinging an elbow album into Toure, De Gea for speaking Pigeon to everyone’s English hero, Putin for a pitch invasion when he sees everyone Russian around, Moyes for not declaring to the I.R. having a twin brother who is also his chauffeur (thanks Brett for that info), Hernandez will be sent on to climb the PeaStalk to rescue the treasure from the sleeping giant… which has just awoken and will happily let the Little Pea take as many trinkets as he likes; it won’t matter in the bigger scheme of things.

Prediction: Man U to record 57% possession.

P.S. I hope Mr Webb is in charge of the match or the above won’t happen, obvs.

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Ben (Benglorious):

One of the oldest rivalries in English football is being hosted at Old Trafford this Sunday.  Liverpool visit the Theatre of Dreams on a nine Premier League game unbeaten run, which has seen them demolish Arsenal, snatch an injury-time victory in a five goal thriller at Fulham and clinically dispatch Southampton in their last league run-out.  They’re winning matches the way you’re supposed to – by scoring more than their opponents – despite the best efforts of their defenders attempting to give the other team a chance.  They may have only kept two clean sheets in those nine matches, but they’ve banged in a quite ridiculous twenty-nine goals to bring them to second in the table; a mere seven points behind leaders Chelsea, but with a game in hand.

With Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez spearheading arguably the strongest attack in the whole of the Premier League, United have plenty to fear today.  Our defensive frailties are there for all to see:  Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra have both lost that mythical yard of pace; Captain Nemanja Vidić will have his next club, Inter Milan, on his mind; Chris Smalling and Phil Jones haven’t found their best positions yet; Jonny Evans is out injured and Rafael, fan favourite though he may be, can be be a liability in hot-blooded games like today’s event.

CAN YOU IMAGINE IF I ACTUALLY WROTE LIKE THAT FOR EVERY GAME?!?  No, thank you.  If you want serious (read: “boring”) matchday previews, then you’ve come to the wrong place.  Anyone with half a football brain can write stuff like the above: generic, stating the obvious tat, with a few pointless statistics thrown in to make it look like the writer is the Football Knowledge King, Soccerbrain Palace, Statistician Drive, Hipsterton, Football Knowledge Kingdom, HP1 1KK.

“Proper” football writers are ten pennies a dime on the internet, and pretty much regurgitate the same gibberish as the next guy.  Or the previous one.  Or the one writing concurrently to them.  I don’t know.  I’m all about the jokes.  Jooooooooookes.  My colleagues Tom and erm, Mr Bifocal are “writers” in the same vein: we’re the mainline injection of zany crack to Martin Samuel’s hand-warming Lemsip.  Now THAT’S a metaphor.

[That’s not to say that there aren’t some wonderful football writers out there.  If you don’t already, you should definitely check out some of my friends people I’ve met through annoyed on Twitter, particularly Paul Ansorge (@UtdRantcast, 14000+ followers), Paul Gunning (@PaulGunning1, 1500+ followers, most of them bought) and Ivan Evan Ewan Iwan Lehnert (@IwanLehnert, 400+ followers.  Seriously?  That few?  That’s a bigger injustice than the recent Cantona framejob).  Not only are all three terrific writers about all things United, they probably also get paid by the thoroughly respectable websites they wordsling for.  If I had to rank them:  Snog Iwan, marry Paul and avoid Gunning.  He’s the worst.]

Prediction:  Yet more hope and optimism from me this week, particularly in light of our excellent 3-0 defeat of the mighty West Bromwich Albion Football Club last Sunday.  Robin will have calmed down after last week’s shenanigans and put in a season-best performance; Wayne will use all his Everton/United hatred of Liverpool to put in a season-best performance; Shinji will come off the bench to put in a season-best performance and Dave will put in such a season-best performance that Liverpool’s S.A.S. (Pah! As if!) will both leave the pitch crying, begging for their mums.  1-0 Liverpool.

About the author:  Most of my jokes are* funny.

*You thought I was going to put “aren’t”, didn’t you?  Classic misdirection gag.  Told you I was funny.

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Tom (@Tom_McGhee):

Earlier this season – when it was still kinda funny – I suggested that we were entering the Prequel Trilogy of the Star Wars Universe. We all laughed (that’s the royal ‘we’ obvs) and then got on with our lives. Several months on, that light-hearted and off-the-cuff remark has borne an evil fruit. Certainly not the 5-Star healthy fruit we at UETFA use for all our currently non-sponsored competitons; I know you’re reading Nike – this is your chance to get on at the ground floor. World Cup year. If you don’t, Sky will.

Anyway….the tenuous Star Wars analogy I’m persisting with because it’s easier than accepting reality: If Fergie retiring was Chancellor Valorum’s ignoble dismissal, then Moyes arrival is clearly the equivalent of Palpatine’s rise to Chancellor – first game of the season? Nothing’s changed, people are happy, no-one’s aware of the insidious plot (Although I maintain in the film this was stupid because Return of The Jedi has been out for years….), everyone’s slightly nervous but hey, we’ll be fine. Luckily, we can completely ignore Attack of the Clones because a) why wouldn’t you? and b) I don’t think even I could relate the clone wars to United’s season. Moving on to Revenge, this is where it could go either way – either Moyes/Palpatine’s attempt at using his latest apprentice Darth Vader/Rooney – the great white hope who fell from grace to become a soulless jerkoff – will succeed and our brave Jedi Council (RVP/Adnan as Yoda/Obi-Wan respectively) will flee for their lives a la the movie OR Wayne will restore balance to the force and Moyes won’t have to be thrown down a massive shaft. Given Wayne’s new contract, this seems unlikely – he’s more money than man now, fat and evil. On the plus side – for me – this does mean I get to carry this nonsense on into next season with A New Hope. Unlucky losers.

Probably should mention the game. Because of the way I look at the world ie As I wish it to be, I’m going for a 5-0 to United, De Gea making a string of saves so brilliant, Arsenal erect a statue to him straight away. And lastly, when Ben thinks he’s talking to his mum? All me.

Prediction: 7.14pm Achacha Fruit.

Brett:

When I first set up Bifurcated – three years ago – I would sometimes allow myself to dream of this day: when following on from some really enjoyable, varied and entertaining opinions from both sets of fans I would*chokes*

I’d still like someone to tell me where Luis Suarez got that Andy McNab glove puppet?

I’m not ready for football yet, and besides by the time the games kicks off I’ll be on holiday.

I just hope Moyes gives the yoof a chance, though after Sunday, I can imagine he’ll find it hard to not go with a strong team (that’s funny, ‘cus I’m still crying, whilst gulping down Brasso).

Prediction: 1 – 0. Danny with his customary two. Adnan.

Iwan (@IwanLehnert):

The manager has stated that Rooney is unfit ahead of a key game. If we had a manager that wasn’t so proficient in fibbing about the fitness of his players, then I’d truly believe him. As such, I don’t. Rooney could well have some involvement on Sunday, and he could well start. That’s just how Ferguson works.  Of course, I could be wrong; this is a double-fake out and Rooney really won’t be available until midweek despite making it seem as if he will be by saying he won’t be. Crafty bugger…..

We’ve been prepared to play without him for a while anyway, so it’s hardly the end of the world if he isn’t available. The problem isn’t that we don’t have sufficient cover, because we clearly have options available to compensate for the lack of our favourite Scouser (not exactly a difficult title to maintain, obviously). The problem lies in that you really want as many options available to you as possible ahead of a derby game. Saying “anything can happen” is a big barrel full of rubbish, because not everything can happen (I doubt that a squad of Liverpudlian killer whales dressed in wetsuits will infiltrate the dressing room and hold RVP hostage, for example), but current form isn’t always the best barometer for measuring just how big games will go. You’d say that given our current position atop the Premier League mountain of Aceness that we’d be well placed to win at home against a team 21 points behind us.

Except it’s not that easy, is it?

Rodgers’ first derby at Anfield ended badly with the ignominy of a 1-2 defeat despite having had the better of the entire game with ten men. He won’t want to lose in the return fixture. Gerrard has pieced together some semblance of form after a difficult start to the season. Suarez has made me eat my words in spectacular fashion by proving that he function without another recognised striker his side and has 15 goals to his name already this season. It’s just not going to be a walkover, and Liverpool will be more than happy to turn up, which is something we’ve not managed to do at Anfield for a long time, despite the result in September. It’ll be tight, tense and marvellously engrossing. With the cup replay on Wednesday and Spurs to come next weekend, it feels as if this season is ready to truly get going.

Brett:

Is Rooney really not available for the game he loves to score in? Can Fergie really push mind games to this kind of nth degree whereby you think it’s mind games but you second guess yourself, third guess yourself and fourth guess yourself, till you forget what it was you were trying to fathom? I’ve forgotten what I was trying to fathom. By the way – totally unrelated – I don’t think Rooney will be fit.

With RVP in the team, Chicha firing and even without those factors, we’d struggle not to beat Liverpool at home. The new SAS although infinitely more annoying than V1.0, which is no mean feat, are nowhere near as threatening and of course, neither would you expect them to be, after just a few days of being. No doubt there will be a few moments where Liverpool, in spite of themselves, will cause us a few problems – probably in some way of our own making.

The knuckleheads will no doubt ensure that the shadows cast by the Evra/Suarez racism issue still linger over this fixture for years to come. I don’t enjoy this game and won’t be watching.

Prediction: 3 – 1

Goals: RVP 2, Danny.

On an emotionally charged day for many the game thankfully played out relatively trouble free. Suarez shook hands. Fergie’s letter was well received. Calls for calm from all quarters were respected. Let’s hope those responsible for such an appalling injustice can be held to account.

The game itself said much about the form of the two sides as Liverpool looked clunky and couldn’t find the net and we were showing just what being ‘slow starters’ is all about. My friend Rob – despite my pleas for no texts as I wasn’t actually watching the game live – insisted on texting me with *Got the ref on ur side* *Your ref is shocking!* and *And again.* . He had a point – sort of. The sending off was obviously pivotal and I still can’t decide (after watching it a few times) who’s clearly making much the worst tackle out of Shelvey and Jonny Evans. The diving of Suarez (sorry, simulation) is boring and our penalty – although “dodgy” – was definitely a penalty on further inspection. How the referee gets all those right at the time, I’m not entirely sure … I guess that’s Robs point. Ahhh, what does he know?!

My nerves owe Van Persie a huge debt after he finally ended our spot hex – albeit by the smallest of margins. That could have dragged on and become “A Thing”. It’s still a bit of a thing, but less so. Yay for RVP! Rafa’s goal was an absolute peach. A proper pitchin’ wedge. Really excited about the way he’s started the season (mostly).

I was shocked to see Lindegaard in goal. I think I prefer him, but I do think De Gea is the future. I would definitely prefer a bit of continuity, at least I think I would. Whatever works.

MOTM: TV – cus I haven’t given him one yet, so there.

We need to at least pretend we’re beginning to think about shifting through the gears soon. Maybe the return of Rooney will help with that.