Though the meeting came in the cup, Liverpool would certainly test United’s credentials in a tie billed as a battle of the strike partnerships: Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke against Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler.
United’s main men had already plundered 31 goals between them in all competitions, but that was just one more than their Anfield counterparts, and the visitors’ menace was underlined in just the second minute at Old Trafford when Owen headed the opening goal to send 8,000 travelling supporters wild.
Amassed in the Scoreboard End, it was the visitors who crowed for the vast majority of the game as United created and spurned chances aplenty against a Liverpool team defending as if their lives depended on it.