Controversial Encounter

Today's heavyweight clash between United and Liverpool saw the first meeting between Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez since the racism row.

Tensions were bound to be close to their peak, but were spiced up even further as the Uruguayan ignored the hand of Evra in the pre-match hand-shakes, followed by Rio Ferdinand and Danny Welbeck failing to offer the gesture.

The first half was fiery, with crunching tackles all over the pitch, but lacked quality to open the scoring. The clear chance of the half came for Paul Scholes, who was dominating the midfield as usual. A fantastic move of one-touch football led to Ryan Giggs playing a perfect cross onto the head of Scholes, but the master could only divert it straight at Liverpool stopper Pepe Reina.

Suarez thought his chance had come, when he took the ball beyond Evra for a 1 on 1 chance with David De Gea. However, he was stopped in his tracks by a sensational committed challenge by Ferdinand, who had to get the tackle spot on, otherwise he would've faced an early bath.

Sparks flew in the tunnel at the break, and it was United who composed themselves for the second half, as Wayne Rooney scored twice in the opening 5 minutes to set the Reds on course for 3 points. Fergie's men controlled the tempo throughout, with Scholes at the heart of everything.

However, with 10 minutes to go, the inevitable happened, with enemy Suarez scrappily bundled the ball over the line to get the Merseysiders back in with a chance. The United box was bombarded with long balls, but the defence held out with some strong defending, as well as Dea Gea pulling off another wonderful save, similar to last week, to prevent Glen Johnson getting a late equaliser, and the Red Devils took the 2-1 victory to go top of the Premier League by a point.

The main talking point, however, will be the controversy surrounding the Suarez/Evra incidents. Following the final whistle, the United captain celebrated in front of Suarez, which caused yet another another scrap down the tunnel. Unfortuantely, it seems the unsavioury incidents will almost certainly over-shadow the impressive performance and victory for the Champions.