Fergie set his stall out with a simple 4-4-2 with Berbatov and an apparently fit enough Wayne Rooney leading the line. Giggs and Valencia were on either wing with Carrick and Scholes holding the middle. O’Shea continued at right back, with Evra on the left and the usual pairing of Vidic and Ferdinand making up a typical back four in front of Edwin van der Sar. It looked like we were there to attack.

But we didn’t. In fact, the lads didn’t do much of anything. The first half didn’t produce much either way and the ref was questionable to say the least in his decision making but as the teams left the field at half time, the atmosphere was hotting up and you expected something to happen after such a dull display.

Liverpool started the second half on the front foot and quickly the match began to play out just as the last one had ended. Nothing was changing. In seems unfair to single anyone out for criticism because everyone played so badly.

Carrick and Scholes were completely over run in the middle of the park and their passing was woeful. I don’t remember Carrick making a successful forward pass in the entire game and Scholes struggled to keep up with the pace at times.

John O’Shea was guilty of who knows how many dodgy passes, Vidic was sent off for the third time in as many games against the same opposition and Ferdinand was once again involved in poor defending which cost the team dear.

Up front, Rooney and Berbatov received little service and were both relatively quiet. Rooney was perhaps still feeling the effects of his recent injury but stayed on the pitch the full ninety minutes. I don’t know whether it’s his reputation going before him, but I was particularly disappointed with Berbatov. The Liverpool attackers were hardly ever standstill. In comparison, Berbatov seemed to be barely moving.

Liverpool took the lead when Yossi Benayoun sliced open the defence which was holding a very high line leaving Torres only Rio for company. As we saw in the City derby with Craig Bellamy, Rio just doesn’t have that turn of speed to keep up. After skipping away from Rio, Torres smashed the ball past helpless van der Sar.

Even at 1-0 there was little change in play and more concerning, no apparent changes from the bench either. Michael Owen was on the bench and was one man with a particular interest in doing well at his old stomping ground yet Fergie waited until the 74th minute before bringing him on for the anonymous Dimitar Berbatov.

The teams only other change also came with Owen as Nani took the field to replace Paul Scholes. Nani took over on the wing pushing Giggs inside, and created more opportunities in his fifteen minutes than Giggs had managed all game. Had the winger been given more time I wonder whether me may of taken one of those.

Owen almost had a chance but as he was through on goal, Jamie Carragher hauled him to the ground and escaped with a booking. Vidic got a red for something similar in a previous encounter but let’s not go into that.

Last man and already booked Vidic didn’t need much contact to bring down Dirk Kuyt which earned the Serbian his third red card in as many games against Liverpool and Mascherano, never one to beat, also got himself sent off deep into injury time for his second bookable offence as he arrived about 18 seconds late in a challenge on van der Sar.

With a central defender missing and the team desperate to score, it didn’t take long to get caught on the counter attack and when Torres’ replacement Ngog found himself one on one with the keeper, he clinically finished to round off a miserable day all round.

The problem is, as been stated many times, respect is a two way thing. You cannot simply demand respect and show contempt at the same time. It just won’t work.

But that is exactly what Prospect, the union for referees has done. They’ve bitten the hand that feeds them and displayed their complete lack of respect toward the FA whilst beating the “Respect the Ref” drum in the process. Erm, hello, exactly how dumb are you?

Sir Alex Ferguson made a bit of a wrongun when he described referee Alan Wiley as ‘unfit’ and as you would expect, the FA have intervened and are looking into the incident. They will have numerous discussions on how best to handle the situation and dish out a punishment they deem appropriate. That is part of the FA’s job afterall.

The job of a referee is to officiate on match days. That’s it; it’s pretty simple; they known their role. Or at least you would hope they do. It turns out, their union has other ideas.

According to them, it is also their job to punish acts of disrespect shown to match day officials. They are happy to let the FA handle things; as long as the FA do what they want. If they don’t, Prospect will take matters into their own hands.

“If the FA don’t satisfy us, we would have to take legal advice” said Alan Leighton, the national secretary of Prospect.

Ferguson has since apologised for the outburst but that apology has fallen on deaf ears.

“We hope there’s a meaningful punishment,” Leighton added. “This is a huge topic and it isn’t going to go away on this partial apology. I’d be very disappointed if the FA duck the issue.

“Should that happen, we would want to talk to them about tightening the punishment system in future.”

As you can see, it turns out, the job of the referee stretches far beyond anything we had imagined. On top of their match day duties, it also the role of the referees to undermine the FA and seek punishments they deem suitable whilst also acting as advisors to the FA on how to do their job.

If the referees want respect, they have to start showing it. That means holding their hands up when they make mistakes; remaining consistent in their refereeing decisions and above all, respecting the decisions made by footballs governing body.

There is a pecking order in football and as much as they hate to admit it, referees are not at the top!

“I was disappointed with the referee,” said Ferguson. “He didn’t add on any time for the goal. He played four minutes and two seconds.

“He was also walking up the pitch for the second goal needing a rest. He was not fit enough for a game of that standard. The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. He was not fit. It is an indictment of our game.

“You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher’s dogs. We have some who are fit. He wasn’t fit. He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous.”

The FA acted quickly and asked Fergie to explain his comments whilst Alan Leighton, the national secretary of Prospect, the union for referees, has called for Ferguson to be suspended from football.

ProZone stats apparently reveal Alan Wiley covered more ground than all but seven of the players on show. I haven’t actually seen the stats myself, I have to take the word of the Daily Mail on this one. The Mail also claim Wiley scored very well in what referees consider the most important statistical measure of their fitness – how close to the action they were when judging fouls. Wiley was on average 15.6 metres from the ball when awarding a foul, which is considered an impressive proximity by refereeing chiefs.

Regardless of whether Wiley is physically fit enough for the Premier League, as a referee in general, he has demonstrated his inability to handle the pressure associated with the big games.

Alan Wiley was the fourth official during United’s 4-3 derby day win over Manchester City. Towards the end of the match, Wiley explained to Mark Hughes that additional time on top of added time would be played because City had scored in injury time. That’s just standard practice.

A minimum of four minutes stoppage time was added to the end of the Sunderland game and as the clock ticked to 90, United were losing 2-1. A goal was scored and although United didn’t celebrate in the same manner as City did, valuable time was still taken up.

Wiley added two seconds for the goal. Where is the consistency?

It has been a long held misconception that United have the ref in their pocket, at Old Trafford in particular and after the City game, the media went crazy with the ‘added time scandal’. With the derby game fresh in his mind, you can only assume Wiley gave careful consideration to whether he would add anything on for the goal. The fact the match was at Old Trafford shouldn’t of even been a factor; but it was.

Alan Wiley bottled it. The right thing to do was add a bit of extra time, just like he normally does. But he was scared of the media; scared United might snatch a win; scared of the backlash.

Alan Wiley consciously made the wrong call and that in itself should see him stripped of future refereeing duties.

Last season, after a 2 – 1 defeat away to Arsenal, United went on something of a clean sheet frenzy. 1,334 minutes of Premier League football were subsequently played and not a solitary goal was conceded. In the entire season, the defence was only breached 24 times and it was due to this we won the league for the third consecutive season.

Fast forward a few months and the defence looks almost unrecognisable. Just eight games into this campaign and the defence has leaked eight goals. Six of these goals have been scored at Old Trafford, whilst only two have been conceded on our travels. At Old Trafford, we have shipped five goals in only two games. Is it just bad luck or is there a reason?

I think there is one glaring reason and he goes by the name of Ben Foster.

Opinion is well and truly divided on the young Englishman’s ability to be our number one but as Foster delivers cock up after cock up, his loyal supporters must surely jump ship and realise he is just a calamity waiting to happen?

One could go so far as to say he is England’s natural successor to David James. Like James, Foster is a great shot stopper; there is little room for doubt on this issue but to be a top class keeper, you need more than shot stopping. You need to command your area, instil confidence, clear the ball to safety and deal with crosses. Foster is lacking in all of these areas.

All three City goals should have been avoided the other week and the two Sunderland managed on Saturday should also have been dealt with.

Whilst it is difficult to blame Foster for all the goals, I’ll stick my neck out and give it a good go.

Against City and to a lesser extent Sunderland, United were guilty of giving the opposition too much time on the ball. The defence failed to close the opposition down time and again. Were it not for a last ditch tackle by Carrick on Saturday, we’d have been facing our second defeat of the season.

So how can I blame this on Foster I hear you ask? It all comes down to confidence or a lack thereof.

The players don’t have any confidence in Foster, and with lingering doubt, are overly cautious in the tackles. Instead of getting on the man, they mark the space. Staying between their man and the ball means they still have a chance of doing something. Commit and miss the tackle and you’ve got to rely on Foster. And no one wants to do that.

Luckily, Edwin van der Sar is back in training and shouldn’t be far from a recall. The International break couldn’t have come at a better time considering we have some big matches coming up against Liverpool and Chelsea in the next few weeks. If we have any aspirations of retaining our title, we’ll need Van der Sar back to full fitness.

United’s next match is at home to Bolton on 17th October. I anticipate a much improved defensive unit backed up by the one and only, Edwin van der Sar.

The tireless midfielder was struck down by a virus over the weekend and after missing training, Ferguson has ruled the South Korean out of contention for the mid week clash.

Patrice Evra also contracted the virus but appears to be over the worst and is back in training.

“Ji-sung has a virus,” said Ferguson. “Patrice Evra had it at the weekend. After the Stoke game he felt a bit uneasy – he was in bed on Sunday and didn’t come to training, but he came in for a bit yesterday, came in today (Tuesday) and he should be alright.”

Ferguson also revealed Michael Owen has picked up a groin stain but it is likely he will be okay in time.

“Michael should be alright for tomorrow. He had a tight groin in training yesterday, nothing serious.”

“We feel really frustrated, robbed if it’s not too strong a word” he told Sky Sports News. “We have done really well to come back into the game and the referee has taken a hand and we’re desperately disappointed because I thought we deserved something out of the game.”

So Hughes blames the referee for the defeat? Before we address the referee issue, let’s talk match stats. United dominated possession 60% to 40%, United had 24 shots to City’s 11, United had better passing and tacking percentages and the game was played predominantly in City’s half. On paper, as in reality, United won the match.

Stats aside, how about the referee? Hughes’ gripe is that Owen scored his goal with 95 minutes and 20 seconds on the clock. Since the referee had signalled just four minutes of time to be added on, how was this possible?

It’s actually pretty simple.

Alan Wiley, the fourth official, had already explained to Hughes that he was adding an additional minute to the game for City’s third goal celebration. That makes five minutes. Officials are also told to add extra time for any substitutions and so Carrick’s introduction in injury time was surely an effort to buy more time. Say, 30 seconds?

There’s five and a half minutes of injury time right there, more than enough for Michael Owen to pop up and snatch a winner.

Manchester United could have thrashed Manchester City in today’s 153rd Manchester Derby but will settle for the three points courtesy of a last gasp winner from substitute Michael Owen. United ended 4 – 3 winners in a game which Ferguson said could have easily been 7 – 0.

The Champions started the match in blistering fashion, with Wayne Rooney giving them the lead in the 2nd minute. The England forward latched onto a pass from Evra before side stepping two Blue shirts and slotting home past Shay Given. That makes it six goals from six Premier League matches this season for Wazza.

At this point, I was dreaming of a landslide but as the half went on, it become increasingly frustrating as City’s five man midfield appeared to settle down and stamp their authority on the game. It was in the 17th minute when City were handed their equaliser, courtesy of a gaff by either Ben Foster, Rio Ferdinand or a combination of them both.

A seemingly harmless ball made its way to Foster but the stand in keeper was too slow in reacting. Carlos Tevez nipped in past Ferdinand to harass Foster off the ball before slipping it to Gareth Barry who coolly slid the ball into an empty net. Given all we know about Tevez, it beggars belief he was given the opportunity in the first place. If in doubt, boot it out.

Tevez had one assist on his return to Old Trafford and almost coupled it with a goal towards the end of the first half but the Argentine drilled his shot into the post from eight yards out. Composure was never his strong point.

It hadn’t been the greatest performance in the first half for the Reds but it was a rejuvenated team which stepped out onto the pitch in the second half. Indeed it took just three minutes to regain the lead as Evra combined with Giggs, whose cross was met by the head of Darren Fletcher. 2 – 1 United.

But before my mind could even wander back to those ambitions of a derby day thrashing, City were level again. Craig Bellamy picked the ball up and was given too much time on the ball just outside the box. Whilst no one was closing him down, Bellamy had his sight set on goal and rifled an unstoppable shot into the roof of Foster’s net.

At this point, City manager Mark Hughes, must have started to believe his own hype or something because City switched from one up top, to two up top. Drawing with the Champions must not be enough, City think they can win it. Big mistake.

For the next 20 minutes or so, it was United that controlled the game. City were well pinned in their own half having to deal with a relentless number of crosses and shots. Antonio Valencia was brought on for Ji-sung Park and Michael Owen for Dimitar Berbatov, who could and should have scored at least one in his time on the pitch.

As United continued to press, Hughes was forced to justify his tactics to his own players. Tevez, Toure and Bellamy were all seemingly unhappy with the direction the game was heading. And they were right too. United’s third had looked on the cards for some time and it was another cross from Ryan Giggs met once again by Darren Fletcher that delivered the goods. For the first time in his career the Scot had scored twice in a Premiership match.

The sense around Old Trafford was that the game had been won. Fletcher’s second goal of the game coming with just nine minutes to go in a period where the Reds were totally dominant. That turned out not to be the case.

A minute from time, Ferdinand was sloppy in a pass which left Bellamy in behind him whose pace was too much for Rio. As Bellamy honed in on goal, Foster made a weak attempt at smothering the ball allowing the Welshman to nip through and dink the ball home for the equaliser.

Old Trafford was shell shocked. Four minutes of injury time were to be played. Could United salvage the three points? Turns out they could. City’s goal, plus the introduction of Michael Carrick added some precious time to the match clock and as Giggs spotted Michael Owen alone in the City box, he hit a beautifully weighted ball to the England striker.

If there was ever a chance for Owen to win over some of the United faithful who still cast doubt, here it was. Deep into injury time on derby day and in front of the Stretford end. Owen took the ball and with the finesse we’ve seen in years gone by, drifted it into Shay Givens net.

One of the most exciting matches I have seen for years and most definitely a deserved result.

After the match, Ferguson told Sky Sports News:

“What can you say. We have thrown three goals away at them. It could have been an embarrassment today. It could have been six or 7-0 if we had defended our proper way, our normal way, we could have won by a big score today. “.

“But by making mistakes was an essence of the game it became the best derby game of all time. So what do you choose? One of the best derby games of all time or win 6-0?”

Foster has impressed following a run of games in the first team as the 24 year old stands in for injured Edwin van der Sar. He has played in all six of United’s competitive fixtures this season, conceding just two goals in the process and pulling off a host of top draw saves.

Manchester City go into the match on the back of a 4 – 2 victory over Arsenal after an impressive start which has seen them win all four of their opening league matches. City have also had a prolonged rest since they are not involved in any European competitions this season. A result of finishing tenth last term.

“Manchester City spent a lot of money in the summer and the start they have made this season means they’ve got to be considered (as title contenders),” Foster told ManUtd.com.

“I think there’s no doubt that they’ll be up there come the end of the season, but so will we. The result they had against Arsenal was a big one for them. It’s not very often that a team beats Arsenal and score four goals against them.

“We know that it’s going to be a tough match on Sunday. But the lads will all be well up for it and giving 100 per cent.”

Prior to the game, Rooney was one of just three players to have started all six of our games this season (Evra and Foster are the other two) and Ferguson always planned to bring the England international off; no doubt with an eye on derby day this Sunday.

“It was always part of our thoughts to bring Wayne off,” Ferguson told Sky Sports.”He had been playing as the lone striker for an hour, which is why he was always going to come off. He is never pleased to come off. He has so much energy he wants to play all the time.”

Rooney’s exit from the pitch was slow; he shook his head at the decision before appearing to exchange words with a Besiktas fan. He then proceeded to sit down and throw his boots to the ground. Passionate, yes; acceptable, no.

Many Reds will brush this off as over enthusiasm and will quote his desire to play as defence for the outburst but that would be a case of the red tinted specs obscuring their view. If you fall into this category, just ask yourself, would you have the same opinion if it had been a City player? Or a Liverpool one? Or a Chelsea player? Imagine it was Gerrard or Terry throwing their boots around. We’d have a field day.

On the pitch, Rooney is developing into a world class forward. He is definitely the best player in our squad and has the potential to become the best in the world. But this latest outburst shows me that he is still not a complete player.

Performance on the pitch is just one aspect of being a footballer nowadays. Their off the pitch antics are scrutinised as much as their on field ones and rightly so. My twelve year old cousin idolises Wayne Rooney. He watches him on a Saturday and tries to replicate what he sees on Monday morning in the school playground. Rooney is a role model for thousands of kids and he needs to act accordingly.

Of course, the fire in Rooney’s belly is a big part of what makes him the player he is. To curtail it in any way would be detrimental to his performance right? Again, I just can’t accept that.

Aggression is okay, but it must be controlled. Rooney is 23 now and at some point he is going to have to learn to curb his enthusiasm. He could learn a lot from his friend and City fan Ricky Hatton. Boxing is a perfect example of how aggression and control go hand in hand. You’ll never make it to the top without both and we want Rooney to make it to the top. He is a Red after all.

If you missed the incident, you can see it here.

Emmanuel Adebayor has been charged by the FA for violent conduct following his vicious stamp on Arsenal striker Robin van Persie. He has also been hit with a second charge of improper conduct following his immature goal celebration which saw him run the length of the pitch to stick it to the Arsenal fans.

Adebayor was on the score sheet against his former club as City beat Arsenal 4 – 2 but the match turned sour after a couple of acts of petulance by the Togo International. In a challenge with van Persie, Adebayor aimed at stamp at his former teammate leaving him with ‘facial injuries’.

Referee Mark Clattenburg missed the incident but after seeing video replays, has informed the FA he would have sent Adebayor off if he had seen it. Had Adebayor been sent off, the striker would have been hit with a three match ban so we can expect a similar punishment to be handed out now. Given the clear intent on the part of Adebayor, a longer suspension wouldn’t be inconceivable.

That means Adebayor will miss the derby clash on Sunday adding to City’s attacking woes ahead of their trip to Old Trafford. Carlos Tevez and Robinho are both injured and Santa Cruz is yet to make an appearance for the club after recovering from injury himself.

Adebayor has until 6pm tomorrow to respond to the charges but it is now all but certain a suspension will be imposed.

You can read the FA’s official statement here.