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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

• No further action after incident on 8 January in Yarm
• England winger was visiting friends and family on Teesside

Stewart Downing will not face charges relating to the Liverpool player’s arrest last month on suspicion of assault, police have said.

The 27-year-old England winger was held for questioning following an alleged incident at the Cross Keys pub in Yarm, Teesside, at around 1am on 8 January.

A 32-year-old woman also arrested at the time on suspicion of assault remains on police bail.

A Cleveland police spokeswoman said: “A 27-year-old man who was arrested on suspicion of assault following an alleged incident at a pub on Yarm High Street has been released without charge.

“A 32-year-old woman who was also arrested on suspicion of assault remains on bail pending further inquiries. Inquiries are ongoing.”

Downing played for his hometown club, Middlesbrough, before moving to Aston Villa and then Liverpool in the summer of 2011. He was believed to be visiting friends and family on Teesside at the time of the incident.

Liverpool
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