Rivals are equals in dullness

English FA Premiership/ Liverpool 0 Manchester Utd 0: Make that seven wins in a row for Chelsea at the start of a Premiership season. This was the weekend bonus victory for the reigning champions, leaving them two points further ahead of Liverpool and Manchester United.

The two sides at Anfield denied themselves and one another. The undeniable talent never came to fruition, and so these clubs provided more evidence of their joint inferiority to Chelsea.

For the time being it is only Jose Mourinho's team that knows exactly what it is doing on the pitch. The Stamford Bridge manager has tailored its approach to perfection, but when Liverpool and Manchester United don a similar style they are an eyesore. Though each of them knew how to pack the midfield, neither could make the flowing transition into attack that distinguishes Chelsea.

Each side was held fast in the other's grip. The obvious technique of these players saved the deadlock from being completely ugly, but it is obvious Rafael Benitez and Alex Ferguson do not possess a battleplan to win the Premiership.

Liverpool and United were the precise equals of one another in the dullness of their attacking. If the visitors were on top before the interval, Steven Gerrard, suddenly discovering his best form in the second half, balanced the books fastidiously thereafter. The outcome was just and regrettably inevitable.

While Edwin van der Sar was particularly good, the two goalkeepers did not have to hurl themselves around all that much. There is something amiss when spectators are reduced to admiring the fitness of Ruud van Nistelrooy in his constant search for a chance or even, as the day wore on, waiting for the sort of blunder that Liverpool never made.

Peter Crouch might remonstrate with his boss if he were not so new to the club and thankful to be there at all. He was, like Van Nistelrooy, isolated in attack, and the lightweight Luis Garcia could never relieve that loneliness.

The best chance of the match came in an instant of unorthodoxy. Rio Ferdinand glided into the midfield a minute before the interval and put Van Nistelrooy through in the inside right channel, only for the Dutchman to misjudge a chip and land the ball on the roof of the net.

The game did manage to stir itself intermittently, with Gerrard heading over in the second half from a John Arne Riise cross, and extending Van der Sar to a fine diving save from a 30-yarder. The Liverpool captain would also pick out the head of Garcia in the 83rd minute, but there was a predictability about his miscued finish.

Benitez has a number of attackers available even while Fernando Morientes is injured, but the total amount of finesse is insufficient. That factor was illustrated here, as it had been against Real Betis last Tuesday, when Djibril Cisse came on to betray his erratic decision-making. The Frenchman must have been especially annoyed by the reports of Benitez's readiness to trade him in the summer because of their credibility.

United deserve sympathy for some of their limitations since the injury list is a lengthy tale all by itself, especially now that Roy Keane's broken metatarsal makes the use of Alan Smith in the holding role a necessity rather than an experiment.

Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo still look as if the 4-3-3 system shackles them and the side could again be blighted, as it was last season, by a shortage of goals.

Rooney will not have been affected by the bellows of the crowd: after all, it is the voice in his own head that most upsets him. Frustration led him into the dissent that brought a booking, although his self-control was greater than it had been in Villarreal last week.

His psychodramas were not adequate entertainment for spectators who turned their minds to other issues. Liverpool supporters mocked the takeover of their rivals with a chant of "Not For Sale, you're having a laugh", and met with sneers over Merseyside's forthcoming City of Culture status. It was as well the fans knew how to amuse themselves.

* Guardian Service