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• Manchester United manager leaves decision to full-back
• United and Liverpool meet for first time since FA ban

Sir Alex Ferguson will recommend Patrice Evra does not ignore Luis Suaárez in the pre-match handshake when they come face to face for the first time since the Football Association found the Liverpool striker guilty of racially abusing the Manchester United player and banned him for eight matches.

Ferguson intends to leave the decision to Evra when the two teams meet at Old Trafford next weekend but believes the Frenchman should not prolong the argument. “He should be applauded for what he did [reporting Suárez], standing up to it,” Ferguson said. “There is no shame for him. The matter is over. He can rise above that [ignoring the handshake].”

Evra was booed and subjected to chants branding him a liar when he played at Anfield last weekend and one supporter was arrested afterwards for allegedly making monkey gestures. “Patrice handled it OK,” Ferguson continued. “I don’t think he enjoyed it but he handled it OK. Patrice has already shown the courage to fight it, so he has nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t think it’s a problem shaking hands.”

John Terry’s absence with a knee injury means Ferguson will not have to speak to Rio Ferdinand to ascertain whether he is planning to shun the Chelsea captain in the pre-match handshakes at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Ferdinand had told friends he did not want to accept Terry’s hand but Ferguson planned to advise him to go through with it. He said: “Rio has been fighting the racism issue for years. I’ve seen that in all the time I’ve known the lad. But there is a moment when he maybe has to rise above that.”

United’s injury concerns are easing, with Wayne Rooney, Ashley Young, Nani and Tom Cleverley all in the squad, while David de Gea should return in goal after missing the midweek win over Stoke City. Anders Lindegaard has an ankle injury that will rule him out for up to six weeks, meaning Ferguson will persist with a 21-year-old who has looked worryingly vulnerable at times this season. “The boy has got a great talent,” Ferguson said of De Gea. “He has made two or three mistakes but in two or three years we won’t be discussing that at all because he will have matured.

“At the moment he has found it difficult coming into the English game. It is highlighted when you make a mistake at United. It can be exaggerated. But there are mistakes and he wants to address it himself. He will do, through maturity and the understanding of the English game. It is hard when you are replacing someone like Edwin van der Sar and Peter Schmeichel because they are probably two of the greatest goalkeepers in European football over the last 40 years.”

Ferguson was less charitable when it came to Alan Hansen’s recent criticisms of United on Match of the Day, once again turning on the former Liverpool player. “He has tried to change it by saying he was talking about our away form but I have read his transcript and he said we were woeful for the last year and a half. He didn’t mention away games. So he’s dug himself into a grave really.

“He’s in a responsible position and it’s obvious to me he has said it the week before we played Liverpool. I can understand it because he’s a former Liverpool player and Kenny [Dalglish] is his pal, so he’s maybe tried to jack it up a little bit but he should be more responsible.

“When you think about it, we’ve played in a European Cup final, the semi-final of the FA Cup and won the league by nine points, so we couldn’t have been that woeful. Jesus Christ! Maybe he’s not got very good grammar.”

Manchester UnitedLuis SuárezLiverpoolAlex FergusonDaniel Taylor
guardian.co.uk

• Sir Alex Ferguson can no longer hide United’s weak points
• Liverpool’s FA Cup victory shows United need to spend

Many emotions coursed through the minds of Liverpool supporters but they would not have included a pang of sympathy for the beaten manager. So jumbled has the football scene become that the late winner in an intense match was not for once the inevitable property of Manchester United. The circumstances, with Patrice Evra badly at fault, might have been dictated by a vengeful Anfield crowd.

The left-back is no innocent party in their eyes, even if an independent commission found only Liverpool’s Luis Suárez guilty of racist abuse in an exchange between the players during a game in October. The eight-match ban encompassed the encounter on Saturday but Evra, the United captain, had to endure punishment on the field. He was barracked throughout, yet the animosity was not based on skin colour.

So far as the home support was concerned, this was traditional antipathy, with the intensity a notch higher than usual. The Liverpool fans even chanted some guidelines. It was explained they were not racist but simply hated “Mancs”. Amid the bedlam and rage, Evra, normally a sound defender, let his concentration snap in the 88th minute.

He took up a position too far towards his left and so created a gap in the middle of the United defence. Andy Carroll met a long ball from his goalkeeper Pepe Reina and glanced it towards Dirk Kuyt, with the substitute’s angled shot finding the right-hand corner of the net. That incident hardly reflected the nature of the match, but there was an insistence to Liverpool that could not be denied.

The comforting prospect of a replay at Old Trafford might have undermined United but there are broader causes behind the defeat. The means available to United are not so great as in times gone by and not even Ferguson will be sure of manipulating them to achieve the desired result. Rio Ferdinand, at 33, cannot appear as regularly as he once did and was an unused substitute.

Paul Scholes acquitted himself admirably but the re-emergence from retirement of a 37-year-old can bring difficulties of its own. The midfielder was positioned in front of the backline and while that prevents him from exercising devilment and imagination on the attack it does allow him to remain on the pitch for longer. However, 90 minutes is still too much and Liverpool’s surge owed something to his substitution with 14 minutes remaining.

Ferguson is obliged to deal in the sort of caution not associated with United. The rate of scoring is still a good one but their firepower can look diminished just when goals are badly needed. United could not achieve anything close to mastery over Basel in the critical Champions League away game and were deservedly eliminated in the group phase.

The injury that ended Nemanja Vidic’s season on that evening in Switzerland has done the sort of damage that cannot be camouflaged. With Wayne Rooney unavailable through injury, Ferguson attempted to get by with just one attacker in Danny Welbeck until the 89th minute, when Dimitar Berbatov was sent on in desperation.

United were the more accomplished side but the impact was small. Liverpool are 16 points adrift of them in the

• Liverpool manager confident supporters will focus on football
• ‘As long as it’s respectful then there won’t be a problem’

Kenny Dalglish has said Liverpool have their “house in order” ahead of the emotive FA Cup tie against Manchester United and that both clubs have done all they can to prevent further controversy arising at Anfield.

The Liverpool manager and his United counterpart, Sir Alex Ferguson, called for supporters to focus solely on football on the eve of the fourth-round match, which comes three months after the Premier League game at Anfield that led to Patrice Evra making a complaint of racist abuse against Luis Suárez and the Uruguay international receiving an eight-match ban as a result.

Suárez is expected to be at Anfield as he serves the penultimate game of his suspension but the United manager refused to discuss whether Evra will start the game, as Mike Phelan, Ferguson’s assistant, has indicated he would. Dalglish described the tension and controversy surrounding the game as “a sideshow”, and believes it will remain secondary to a Cup tie between England’s biggest clubs should Liverpool produce a repeat of their impressive performance against Manchester City in the Carling Cup semi-final on Wednesday on and off the pitch.

The Liverpool manager said: “We want the fantastic support we had the other night and there’s no reason to think we’re not going to get that. Anything else is a sideshow for us. We don’t want anyone to lose sight of what it is and we don’t want our supporters to lose sight of how important they are vocally to us. We certainly don’t want the players to lose sight – and I don’t think they will – of the competitiveness in the game. We have to compete and do things properly and it’s the same for the supporters. They have been magnificent throughout our history and I am sure they will continue to do that.

“I’m sure there will be banter going back and forth between both sets of fans and as long as it’s respectful then there won’t be a problem. Not only the people who are involved directly the game, but those writing about the game have a responsibility not to run away from what has happened but to act responsibly and not be imagining things that haven’t happened.”

United have an increased ticket allocation of 5,319 for the Cup meeting and Ferguson is confident there will be no problems at Anfield. “As Steven Gerrard was saying, it’s the responsibility of players to behave properly. That’s what I expect my players to do and also the fans,” the United manager said. “Both sets of fans have got to make sure that we end up talking about the game and nothing else. I’m confident we can just concentrate on the football. We’ve been to Anfield already this season and our fans were terrific.”

Dalglish, Ferguson, Gerrard and Liverpool’s managing director, Ian Ayre, have all appealed for calm this week, while the Liverpool manager uses his notes in the match-day programme to ask that the “atmosphere isn’t tarnished in any way.” The two clubs have liaised closely with the Football Association and Merseyside police in recent weeks and Dalglish believes, that with a worldwide audience looking on, the right example will be set.

“We will. The supporters will,” he insisted. “We have got our house in order and I’m sure along the East Lancs Road they will be saying exactly the same thing. The best thing for everybody to be focused on is the football pitch, and that’s where we want people’s attention to be on.

“If something goes off, then it goes off. If it’s bad news, then there is not much anyone else could have done about it. I don’t think either of the two football clubs can be held responsible if it doesn’t go as well as everybody hopes it will do. On previous evidence, the two sets of fans are becoming more respectful for each other. They won’t be sending Christmas cards to each other, but they are becoming more respectful.”

Dalglish is unconcerned about Wednesday’s semi-final taking its toll on Liverpool three days later. “It is better to play than to train,” he said. Ferguson also believes Liverpool’s passage to Wembley could be a factor in the FA Cup. “They’ve got a great lift,” the United manager said. “They were far better than City on the night and but for Joe Hart it could have been quite a big scoreline. Winning is always important.”

United have not won at Anfield in their last four visits, losing three, but Ferguson admits he and his players should thrive on its intimidating atmosphere. He added: “I think the atmosphere for our games at Anfield is terrific. You work all your life to get to a point where you are challenged like that, or your team is challenged like that. We had a good record at Anfield until about two or three years ago. Since then the results have not been great for us, we have not done as well as we used to do, but you would expect that when you have a rivalry between two great clubs.”

LiverpoolKenny DalglishManchester UnitedFA Cup 2011-12FA CupSir Alex FergusonAndy Hunter
guardian.co.uk