It's taken me a while to gather my thoughts on this one. Probably just as well as my mind was spinning after another demoralising defeat at the hands of our arch rivals.
There seems to be no end to the injustices when we play United or even Chelsea for that matter when I think back to that phantom penalty in September when Florent Malouda fell over Steve Finnan's shadow.
I've argued endlessly about the rights and wrongs of the Mascherano sending off. Having balanced all my own view now is that Steve Bennett bottled it and submitted to the media hype that surrounded dissent towards referees that followed Ashley Cole's behaviour at Spurs last week.
An interesting argument was raised on Irish radio this evening about whether Bennett would have sent off Steven Gerrard had he come over to remonstrate after Torres' ridiculous yellow card. Probably not. English internationals appear to be on higher ground (just look at Cole v Spurs) then those dirty, back talking foreigners. Particularly them Argies. We don't like them at all.
In a strange way you had to admire the passion from Mascherano as well as condemning the stupidity of it all. You just wanted Xabi Alonso to grab El Jefe with all his might when he approached Bennett to remonstrate.
You also have to wonder where Steven Gerrard was in all this. Eventually he arrived on the scene when Mascherano had already exploded following the red card but it was far too late. Surely the proper thing for any captain is to be first on the scene not lurking in the background. Gerrard was also conspicuous in his absence at the end of the game when some of the players rightly spoke to the referee about what had passed in the 90 minutes.
Overall there is nothing positive to take from that performance. In truth, sending off aside we were poor and deserved to be beaten. The good work of the last seven games was horribly undone by a good United side.
Pepe Reina seems to have one nightmare a season. Birmingham away in 05/06, Everton away last season and now on Sunday he was at fault for two of the goals. He did well to prevent further embarrassment but the staples of his game - his commanding of the area and his distribution - were both woeful. We'll put it down to being a one off, a costly one but not one anybody would wish to dwell on.
The rest? Well no good performances at all really. Torres got kicked to fuck by Ferdinand and Vidic who of course went unpunished but for Rio getting a yellow card early in the second half. The fact El Nino came off with rib and ankle injuries says it all really about how unfairly refereed the game was.
And where does it leave our season? Well a late title surge is out of the question now. I didn't think it was possible even beforehand but those who did will be rethinking now.
With the derby next weekend and Everton's draw this weekend we're still in a strong position to take fourth place but we'll need to recover from this.
Our confidence has been sky high of late but you just don't know how much that defeat will effect us. We don't have time to mope around anyway. Everton and then a trilogy of big games against Arsenal await. Still lots of the play for so let's get over this and move on.
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