Historic rivals Manchester United and Liverpool have been drawn together for what will undoubtedly be a blockbuster of an FA cup third round. The draw was conducted by Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Serge Pizzorno of Kasabian and the match will take place on the first weekend of January.

The teams last clashed in 2006 when Liverpool defeated United 1-0 in a match that was shadowed by the horrific broken leg injury of United’s Alan Smith. New Liverpool gaffa Roy Hodgson says «It will be an excellent game of football and it’s a bit unfortunate that two premier league teams of the quality of united and us get drawn in the third round, I always feel that’s a bit sad.»

The game will be the only tie in the draw which will face two premier league teams, something which many argue will damage the quality of the football later in the competition. The draw of the competition is designed to be fair and will not always work in any team’s favour but an interesting moment came when Kasabian’s Serge drew his favourite team Leicester and Oasis’ Noel drew his hometown Manchester City out of the hat.

This will be the 9th time the two rivals have met since the war and United have taken the victory 7 times out of the 8 previous games so bookies will have their favourites. But Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is keeping his hopes up despite a string of humiliating defeats and the loss of skippers Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher to injury.

Manchester United have been on top form recently but were victims of a shock 4-0 defeat to West-Ham which has knocked Fergie’s confidence. The match will also come at a time when new united keeper will be joining the squad so there will be question as to when current veteran keeper Van Der Sar will retire any time soon or play out the rest of the season, or if Fergie will replace him in the first thing in the new year.