Manchester Uniteds unsung favourite Ji-Sung Park enjoys his day in the object

By Kevin Garside 730AM GMT twenty-two March 2010

Match leader Manchester United"s Ji-Sung Park heads his team"s winning idea opposite Liverpool Photo GETTY IMAGES

If United are to finish Liverpool"s prolonged mastery of the English stat book, the grant of Ji-Sung Rooney, n Park, and Darren Fletcher will pass in to United lore.

Fernando Torres and Wayne Rooney illuminated up the scoreboard but, on this occasion, not the match. That was the commercial operation of a estimable Scot and a South Korean who stood intrigue on the head to in. United towards a 19th championship.

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A ensign proclaiming the Thessalonica bend of the Hellas reds spread out opposite Sir Matt Busby Way. It was the kind of arrangement that grates with the football precisionist who resents the tellurian interest of the United brand.

For the United believer it is a piece of the club"s identity, a underline of the Old Trafford experience that has the roots in one comfortless afternoon in Munich 52 years ago, that internationalised an institution.

Ten years after along comes George Best to amplify an already singular story in the age of the Beatles. The United diaspora was combined as small boys from Salford to Sofia, Newton Heath to Naples paid for in to the intrigue of the red shirt.

Today they come to watch Rooney book his own epic section in United legend, to see Antonio Valencia and Nani dance in the footsteps of Cristiano Ronaldo and Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Best.

Rooney was relentless in his nuisance of the Liverpool defence. Valencia probed and spread out on a parsimonious fibre and Nani flowered episodically.

The revisit of Liverpool with something to infer does not foster unproductive decoration. It calls for glow and brimstone, yeoman hearts and forearms similar to Popeye. Sir Alex Ferguson understands the requirement. Park and Fletcher are his unsung feet soldiers, players who produce by the tough yards but chance to stopovers and feints.

Fourteen months ago when Chelsea where the group opposite whom United dauntless not lose, Ferguson threaded Park and Fletcher around Ryan Giggs in midfield.

The vaunted triumvirate of Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack and Joe Cole were run out of the boiler room as United proposed the prolonged run for home in the follow for pretension No 18.

Displays similar to this, a opening that arguably did not merit all the points, are the disproportion in in in in between initial and second. Circumstance made the contest. Liverpool had zero to lose. Yes, they are encountering the fourth Champions League mark but that does not weigh as heavily as the championship.

United appeared the some-more compelled by the occasion. The early idea by Torres, though ensuing from a inapplicable designation by Michael Carrick, underscored the mood. Rooney"s chastisement eased nerves but did not check Liverpool"s assured stride. At this point in the diversion Park was a passenger, descending in in in in between the innumerable stools Ferguson sets out for him.

Park is a extraordinary footballer, a player who infrequently gets lost in translation, a demure idol in Premier League terms. At PSV Eindhoven he enjoyed a some-more descent role. At United he appears to fool around inside of himself, deferring to faster feet. On the arise of his 100th begin Ferguson deployed him in modernized purpose to threat Javier Mascherano as most as an auxiliary striker.

He did not have strike with the round until the 14th notation by that time the measure was already one each. His was not a renowned initial half. Some in the stands argued for his removal. What do they know? When overlapping Gary Neville paid for Fletcher the half a back yard he indispensable to representation that right boot, Park morphed in to a balding, bull-necked Scouser to head United towards nirvana.

"Park is one of those players we can give purposes to," Ferguson said. "He has such comprehension and discipline. Today we found an additional purpose for him that was somewhat opposite but was unequivocally critical for us. He is such a dauntless small kid that his bravery got him the goal."

Liverpool had tranquil the round impressively, dominated receive in a demeanour their performances at Wigan and Lille referred to were over them, that begs an ungainly theme of Rafael Benítez.

Albert Riera modernized the perspective that Benítez competence be at error for the prolonged silences he allows in in in in between government and the players. He is not the initial to disagree for a separation in in in in between Benítez and his staff.

Idiosyncrasy is the Liverpool manager"s special subject. Asked if there were any ill will in the trailing foot of Neville that cut a hole in the head of Maxi Rodriguez, Benítez referred to a bird was responsible.

Maybe irony in a Spanish accent is a formidable representation to hit. Mercifully, after a short tease, he pronounced what he felt about Valencia"s destruction in the box.

First it was suspicious, afterwards it was a dive. He was not uneasy with the indeterminate inlet of the plea and paid no mind to because his player was pressuring the competition in the initial place.

He is not alone in that. Benítez moves on to an capricious future, rolling out his default mantra of scheming scrupulously for the subsequent game. Manchester City"s win at Fulham compounded an unprofitable afternoon.

Ferguson"s relocates to Bolton for an additional antagonistic appointment prior to the revisit of Chelsea on Easter weekend.

First name on his teamsheet after Park and Fletcher? OK Wayne, you can have a game.