Skrtel swiftly gets up to speed with task

The blue-and-white hooped shirt tossed towards the dug-out was not all Shane Long abandoned at Liverpool last weekend. Reading's young striker lost his nerve and concentration too, driven to distraction by a cold, imposing defender revelling in the breaking of an opponent's will. The Irishman's substitution was an act of mercy by Steve Coppell; Martin Skrtel's ruthless triumph was the kind from which crowd favourites emerge.

Nine games into his Liverpool career and the 6ft 4in Slovak is already acquainted with the slings and arrows that have characterised a soap opera of a campaign for the club. Only 31 minutes of an inauspicious full debut had elapsed when Skrtel deflected an attempted interception over his goalkeeper and into an empty net in front of the Kop. That the initial shot came from Alfie Potter and gave Havant & Waterlooville the lead at Anfield for a second time increased the ignominy. His subsequent response, however, has reflected well on Rafael Benitez's decision to pay Zenit St Petersburg €8.3 million - a record Liverpool outlay on a defender - for the 23-year-old during the January window.

Smarter strikers than Long have succumbed in combat with Skrtel, voted man of the match when Benitez took his first league point from a top-four rival at Stamford Bridge last month, and who travels to Old Trafford tomorrow with hope of claiming even more. With the exception of one errant pass to Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the Champions League victory over Internazionale at San Siro, grand opponents have not disrupted the Slovakian international's progress. Instead, they have revealed a defender of presence and awareness. But Havant & Waterlooville were a different matter, and they were integral to the speed of Skrtel's development.

"In some respects I think that game helped me a lot," the Liverpool centre-half explains through an interpreter. "When I look back now the team was a non-league team and my mistakes in that game I looked at and I worked on. I have tried hard not to make the same mistakes again.

"Obviously I worried about what the fans would think of me, it was not the best first impression, but as far as the critics are concerned I am my own biggest critic . . . but I knew I would get another opportunity to prove to the supporters I am and will be a better player than that first full game."

It would be a surprise if Skrtel does not start against Manchester United. Jamie Carragher may be displaced to the right-back role he dislikes intensely which offers a clear indication of the Slovak's place in Benitez's affections.

The new arrival has not and may never attract the plaudits Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard have collected in Liverpool's impressive run of seven successive victories, but his influence has been felt, enabling Benitez to lessen the burden on Sami Hyypia and easing the impact of Daniel Agger's loss to a metatarsal injury.

"Immediately after the transfer I found things hard but I feel I have settled in now and don't have any problems," Skrtel adds. "The main difference was on the pitch and the pace of the game here, but I am a physical player and so I think the English game suits me. Off the pitch, in my private life, I was living on my own in Russia and there hasn't been a big difference for me here. I am taking English lessons every day, if possible . . . Zenit is a big club in Russia, but you can't compare it with Liverpool."

A comparison that is valid between Skrtel's past and present clubs is their exhaustive wait for a league championship, a frustration Zenit spiked last year when they secured the Russian title for the first time since 1984, but one Liverpool continue to endure. "We have the players to win the league here. Definitely," is his brief, confident analysis.