James Lawton: Liverpool paradox needs creative solution

The Liverpool fan, exhilarated but baffled by another victory at Old Trafford, asked the television football analyst Rodney Marsh one of the game's more intriguing questions. "How is it," he gasped "we can do to United what we can't do to Bolton Wanderers?"

Or why, he might have added, do Liverpool go to Arsenal for tomorrow's FA Cup final re-match with at least as much confidence as they would approach a home tie with the now dreaded Wanderers?

For once, the former Sheikh of Shepherd's Bush had little to say. "Really," Marsh eventually said, "there's no answer to that. No one in football can say."

In fact, there is a theory, and it has enough circumstantial evidence to fill a dockside warehouse. It says that Liverpool do well at places like Highbury, where they forced a draw shortly before stopping United dead in their tracks the other night, and Old Trafford because of lowered expectations and, much more significantly, the certainty that they will have a relatively paltry share of the ball.

Liverpool can break the flow of even the best teams with their resilience in defence and their capacity to profit from a break. But give them a lot of the ball, as the less skilful teams inevitably do, and the likelihood is not devastating counter-punching but stalemate.

Nothing could have illustrated this reality more dramatically than the transformation Liverpool achieved between a desperate home draw with Southampton last Saturday and Tuesday night's defeat of a United looking for their 10th straight win. Danny Murphy, the gutsy midfielder whose power to over-achieve has already been recognised by the England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, was booed off Anfield after running into a brick wall against Southampton. At Old Trafford he was United's assassin – a feat which moved the stand-in manager, Phil Thompson, to attack those who had barracked the player a few days earlier.

Both Thompson and Murphy's worst critic had probably missed the vital point. It is that Liverpool's condition – which might be diagnosed as creative atrophy – has nothing do with personnel but with philosophy. It is ingrained in the team's set-up.

Thompson unwittingly fuelled this belief when he declared last week: "We need more goals from midfield. We need our midfielders to get forward more quickly." Wrong. What Liverpool really need is for the midfielders to work much more closely with their back four, to bring the ball forward in a more measured way, drawing out opposing defenders and thus creating the space behind them which Michael Owen is sensationally equipped to exploit. But where was Owen operating at Old Trafford? Behind the hapless Emile Heskey. It was surely to compound the problem of poor approach play.

That Thompson should be party to this is quite remarkable, given his own ability to play constructively out of defence in his own days in the team. He, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson all had the capacity to see the possibilities of turning defence into attack with patience – and an inherently aggressive eye. Sami Hyypia and Stéphane Henchoz have produced some superb performances this season, as defenders. But largely they operate independently of the attacking process. This creates a void which should be filled with the craft of talented players like Steven Gerrard, Gary McAllister and Dietmar Hamann – and the combative instincts of Murphy.

On Tuesday night the chasm was filled by United players, most of whom were pretty close to the top of their game. Juan Sebastian Veron had one of his better performances, Scholes was busy and Giggs was dangerous. So why did Liverpool triumph? Because they fed on scraps. They were under the cosh. They defended with tremendous grit and when Gerrard looked up and saw the space behind United's defenders and delivered a magnificent ball into the path of Murphy, United's much greater possession of the ball meant nothing.

At Middlesbrough today United will also enjoy the majority of possession. But unlike Tuesday, they will not be facing a battle-hardened, confident defence and a team of outstanding motivation. The holes in Middlesbrough's defence will not be repaired as quickly as those of Liverpool were. United, it has to believed, will roll over inferior opposition as they were doing so efficiency before they fell again to Liverpool.

It means that United's conquerors need to spend time not on refitting but rethinking. Last season they twice beat United with excellent performances – yet they had only the faintest view of their heels in the run-in to the title. What, they have to ask, is the point of scoring five consecutive victories over the most dominant team over the last 10 years when you are still so far, at least psychologically, from being able to mount a serious challenge for the title? Liverpool's record since their statistically impressive seizing of top spot is a wasteland of under-achievement. The win over United was only their second in 10 Premiership games. So again they face the prospect of watching a team they now regularly confound sailing over hurdles which tend to loom as large as Becher's Brook.

A key part of the rethinking must concern a more imaginative use of available players. Owen's function is surely self-evident. Faster than the great striker Ian Rush over 10 to 15 yards, he needs a proper service for that devastating capacity to lose his cover and strike on goal – the kind of service supplied by someone like Graeme Souness. Such players do not appear on trees, of course, but even Souness's growth would have been stunted in today's Liverpool. Creative football is about the use of space and time. Liverpool do not give their crew enough of either.

It contributes to a massive paradox. Liverpool have invested in players of high quality. They have Jari Litmanen and now Nicolas Anelka, performers of rare class. They have the guile of McAllister. They have the ferocious talent of Gerrard. They have the cutting edge of Owen, Yet they cannot score enough goals. They fear the tread of Bolton Wanderers. Yet at Highbury tomorrow only a fool would bet heavily against their chances. Rodney Marsh said it was a complete mystery. But the more you look at it, the more you see it is not.

Depending on your prejudice, Liverpool are the best bad team in the land – or the worst good one. What is certain is they need to take a somewhat deeper look at themselves.