The Manchester United starting XI on Sunday was the same as in the League Cup final. Unless those players elevate the club to greater heights, they will be remembered more for Anfield than Wembley.
United's players were as trapped as a limp combatant in the Colosseum. The longer the sport, the bloodier it got. It was a death by a thousand cuts.
Those United supporters in the Anfield Road End must have felt they had been teleported back to last season. The result and performance were akin to those sorry surrenders and it is the form that preceded Sunday's shellacking that made the shock factor such a jolt.
