The English media went into absolute meltdown. Headlines, hot takes, and analysis pieces flooded every sports outlet in the country, forcing their way into the notice of every football fan across England.
The Liverpool Echo:
"Never in the hundred-year history of the North West Derby has there been such a complete, exhilarating victory—when Gerrard's thunderbolt crashed into the net, when De Rocca raised a scarf thrown from the Kop, Anfield's night sky was set ablaze in red.
Eighteen-year-old Julien De Rocca rewrote history with his double hat-trick. His dribbling turned Evra into a traffic cone. His passing made United's defense look like a paper fortress in a hurricane.
This wasn't just a victory. It was Liverpool's declaration of resurgence: We didn't just beat our rivals; we've also reclaimed the right to dominate derbies.
After the final whistle, songs from the Kop echoed into the early hours. One supporter was seen crying, saying: 'Shankly's spirit came back tonight. It lives in De Rocca.'"
The Manchester Evening News
"The sight of Sir Alex Ferguson's back as he left the director's box will haunt Old Trafford for years.
Moyes's tactics were chaotic from the opening whistle. Our midfield was carved apart by Liverpool's positioning. Our defense couldn't handle De Rocca's constant attacks. Even Van Persie became a ghost in the penalty area.
This wasn't the 'transitional growing pains' Moyes mentioned. It was a complete, humiliating collapse. Manchester United didn't even leave behind a trace of the 'Red Devils spirit.'
Roy Keane's post-match rant said it all: 'The players didn't fight for the shirt. Moyes's system doesn't suit Manchester United. At this rate, he won't last until Christmas.'"
The Guardian
"The 6-0 scoreline reveals the brutal contrast between two clubs in transition.
Rodgers deployed an 'inverted wingers with midfield strangulation' system that allowed Liverpool's attack to blend De Rocca's individual brilliance with cohesive team pressing.
Meanwhile, Moyes tried to replicate the 4-2-3-1 that worked at Everton, forgetting that this United squad no longer has Scholes's midfield control or Vidic's defensive dominance.
De Rocca's double hat-trick wasn't a fluke—his explosive ability and passing vision represent exactly the 'core qualities' United are missing.
This match may mark the beginning of a new Premier League order: Liverpool have found their future leader. United are still fumbling through the post-Ferguson darkness."
The Sun
"When De Rocca dribbled past three defenders before slotting home, the broadcast cameras at Old Trafford deliberately avoided showing Ferguson's face—everyone knew the Boss wasn't just watching a match. He was watching 27 years of legacy crumble.
Even more pointed was: After the match, Liverpool fans gathered on Anfield Road holding signs reading 'MOYES: YOUR CONTRACT EXTENSION IS THE BEST GIFT WE COULD ASK FOR,' celebrating wildly. Meanwhile, reports from United's dressing room suggest 'no one believes he can save this squad.'
Sources inside the FA claim United's board has already begun privately contacting club legends about potential 'replacement candidates.' This 6-0 thrashing might have started Moyes's sack-watch countdown."
Social media exploded with fan commentary and arguments. The noise was thunderous.
But none of it could dampen Liverpool's celebrations. While Anfield itself had fallen quiet, the city of Liverpool still throbbed with life, its heartbeat was strong and steady.
The damp night wind from the Mersey swept past Anfield's brick walls, brushing over fans who still hadn't left the stadium grounds.
Some sat on the steps outside, clutching old scarves emblazoned with "Shankly's Legacy." Others held half-empty beer bottles, humming along to You'll Never Walk Alone playing softly from their phones.
The melody was carried on the wind, stretched thin and long, not drifting toward the sky but seeming to tunnel backward through time, landing somewhere in the early '90s, during one of those old First Division title-winning nights.
Back then, the Merseyside wind felt just like this.
Except the night sky had been filled with chants of "Liverpool are champions!"
Outside the Boot Room pub, Ted said his goodbyes to George and the regulars. He had to get home, if he didn't, his wife would make the next month unbearable. It was a promise he'd made twenty years ago when they got married: no matter how late, he'd always come home.
The pub door swung shut behind him, but he could still hear the noise from Anfield Road, songs were spilling out from other pubs, voices of fans werew still wandering the streets.
Ted squinted into the distance, and for a moment, he saw himself in 1990: packed into a crowd, waving streamers, watching the players hoist the trophy overhead. The air had been filled with beer and euphoria.
He stood there, lost in memory.
Suddenly, a young man stumbled toward him, clearly drunk, holding out a bottle. "Oi, mate! Keep drinking! Don't go home yet—DRINKK!"
Ted laughed, patting the kid on the shoulder. The lad was wearing a Julien #10 shirt. "I used to be just like you, drinking till dawn and never going home. But I can't do that anymore."
Someone was waiting for him at home.
Ted walked in the direction of his flat. Every few steps, he'd hear that familiar—You'll Never Walk Alone—echoing from somewhere nearby. He couldn't tell if it was real or just playing on repeat in his mind.
He suddenly felt like tonight's songs weren't just celebrations. They were conversations with the past.
Shankly's dynasty. Dalglish's legacy. The euphoria of lifting the old First Division trophy twenty years ago. All of it streamed together on the wind, merging with tonight's 6-0 into one continuous thread of Liverpool history.
As he passed a group of fans, he overheard one of them asking: "You reckon Julien can bring us a trophy?"
"Yeah. He will."
Ted's heart answered before his lips could. He heard others around him responding with the same certainty. No one doubted the French teenager's talent.
Even though he was only eighteen.
Because in just three matches, he'd already embedded himself into the hearts of every Liverpool supporter.
The night wind grew colder, but the fans' songs didn't weaken.
Ted saw people pulling out their phones, recording videos of the night sky, trying to capture this wind, these songs, this Liverpool night, to preserve it forever in memory.
The wind carried the music farther still.
Past the trophy from twenty years ago. Past the statue of Shankly. Past the turf where Dalglish once ran. And finally, it settled back over Anfield's night sky.
In this moment, with the songs and the wind, Julien truly resembled those legends who had once made Liverpool shine.
Ted pulled his jacket tighter, exhaled deeply, and smiled to himself. "This is good. This is really good."
The next morning, Anfield Road at 6 a.m. was still wrapped in mist. On one of the benches outside the stadium, a young man in a 10 shirt lay curled up, a red scarf half-covering his face. Two empty beer bottles rested beside him, their Liverpool crests were damp with mist.
He mumbled "6-0" in his sleep, then tilted his head and drifted off again.
A street cleaner pushing her cart passed by, shaking her head with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. She didn't wake him—last night, the entire street had boomed with songs. Everyone knew these were fans who'd celebrated until dawn.
At least it was still September. Not too cold yet.
At the corner café, the door had barely opened before someone burst in clutching a newspaper. "Have you seen Sky Sports? Julien's photo takes up almost the entire front page!"
Several regulars crowded around as the paper made its way through the group. Someone pointed at the image of Julien's boots and laughed: "Those boots left United's defense on their arses yesterday!"
Coffee hadn't even been served yet, but the conversation had already moved from "Gerrard's screamer" to "Can Julien score hat-tricks in consecutive matches?"
The entire café buzzed with satisfied chatter.
By mid-morning, the sun had burned away the mist, and the streets began to fill with life again.
At a newsstand, an elderly man pointed shakily at a newspaper headline and said to the young woman working the stall, "I've watched this derby for fifty years. Never seen us win this convincingly!"
The woman handed him a copy of The Liverpool Echo with a smile. "Loads of people came by this morning for papers—all wanting to read about Julien and the win. One old lady even said she's buying her grandson a no. 10 shirt!"
The old man nodded, settling onto a small stool beside the stand. He adjusted his reading glasses and began reading slowly, occasionally tapping the page with his finger and muttering the scoreline under his breath.
"Six-nil. Six-bloody-nil. What a beautiful number."
In the afternoon, a pub that hadn't yet opened for the day already had a small group gathered outside.
They were putting up posters of the 6-0 scoreline at the entrance. Then they walked toward a street corner, intending to paint murals commemorating the match.
By evening, the young man who'd been asleep on the bench finally stirred awake. He groggily reached for one of the empty beer bottles beside him, found a mouthful left at the bottom, and drained it. Then he draped his scarf over his shoulder and staggered to his feet, wobbling toward home.
As he passed the café, the owner leaned out and called after him, "Don't sleep on the street next time! When we win again, I'll save you a hot coffee!"
The young man grinned, nodded, and kept walking, humming You'll Never Walk Alone. The setting sun stretched his shadow long across the pavement.
His red shirt glowed like an ember that refused to die out.
The 6-0 celebration wasn't over yet.
Liverpool's red warmth still drifted through the streets and alleyways, lingering like smoke that refused to clear.
But Julien and the Liverpool squad?
They'd already turned their focus to preparing for the next match.
That's the nature of a league season. No matter how spectacular a single victory, you can't win the title with one result. Consistency was everything. Week after week, match after match.
At the Melwood Training Centre, Julien's figure appeared on the pitch half an hour earlier than anyone else, every single morning.
While dew still clung to the grass, he'd already be working through half a bag of footballs, practicing his shooting. Lately, he'd been testing his new curve ball ability, trying to feel out its differences.
At first, his attempts would sail over the bar or wide of the goal. Gradually, though, the ball began bending around imaginary walls, kissing the inside of the post as it nestled into the net. Eventually, even the set-piece coach couldn't help shouting encouragement, "Beautiful! Now press the angle down a bit more!"
Julien adjusted his approach, adding subtle variations to his run-up. The ball began dipping sharply in its final phase, crashing into the top corner where no keeper's fingertips could reach.
The other players were stunned.
Gerrard, watching from nearby, shook his head in disbelief. "If you'd come to Liverpool ten years earlier, United wouldn't have won half the trophies they did."
Suarez, meanwhile, occasionally watched his teammates with a complicated expression.
During training matches, he could see that Sturridge, Julien, Coutinho, and even the young Sterling were all in excellent form. He started to worry—his ban was lasting so long that by the time he returned, would there even be a starting spot left for him?
Still, Suarez trained with intensity. And he had to admit: having Julien on the right flank made his job as a central striker so much easier. Everything just flowed.
Watching Liverpool's new ownership and the team's trajectory, three straight wins to start the season, including a historic demolition of United, some of the doubts that had been gnawing at Suarez began to soften.
Julien kept a close eye on Suarez. Because when he returned to the starting XI, that would be Liverpool at full strength.
After the United match, Liverpool had made a few more deadline-day signings—mostly squad depth. One familiar face: Sakho, the center-back brought in from PSG as emergency cover. He'd been capped multiple times for France, though Deschamps had mostly phased him out recently.
Though at the moment, Suarez's standing among Liverpool fans was... complicated.
Despite publicly committing to stay at the club, Suarez, angel and devil in one volatile package had just embroiled himself in fresh controversy during the recent international break.
In a World Cup qualifier against Peru, Suarez had won a penalty through a blatant dive and converted it himself. Later in the same match, after being fouled on a counter-attack, he'd collapsed in apparent agony.
Furious Peruvian players, convinced he was role-playing, kicked the ball at him while he was down and forcibly dragged him to his feet.
The incident sparked a mass confrontation that nearly turned into a full-scale brawl. Peru's Victor was sent off with a straight red card.
The match was crucial for both sides. Uruguay won 2-1, moving into fifth place in the CONMEBOL qualifying table. Suarez's two goals also sent him to the top of the South American scoring charts with ten goals, overtaking Higuain.
But his antics had made him a villain once again—this time to an entire nation. Peru would hate him as much as Ghana did.
After the match, Peru's manager Sergio Markarián was livid about the officiating, Suarez's diving, and Victor's dismissal and said: "I'm not done with this referee! His idiotic decisions completely changed the outcome of this match!"
Suarez's reputation as both angel and devil stemmed from this contrast.
On the pitch, his talent was undeniable as 23 Premier League goals last season proved that. But he was also a walking controversy: the handball against Ghana in the World Cup, biting an opponent's shoulder in the Eredivisie, repeated diving and a racism scandal in the Premier League, punching an opponent in a qualifier, and biting Ivanovic.
No one knew what outrageous act he might commit next.
Fans loved and loathed him in equal amount.
Still, Julien remained confident about managing Suarez. After all, hadn't he behaved himself alongside Messi at Barcelona? The key was having someone who could keep him in check.
For now, Julien didn't dwell on it. If Suarez wanted to stay, that would be perfect, he was a world-class striker. Julien was confident he could keep him in line.
But if Suarez ultimately insisted on leaving for Barcelona, that would also be Fine. Julien would not be sad for the opportunity to face the so-called greatest attacking trio since Ronaldinho's era—MSN themselves.
He shook off those thoughts aside and refocused on training.
Days blurred together in a steady rhythm of training and preparation.
The Merseyside wind remained unchanged rolling in from the river at dawn, carrying moisture through the fog, drifting lazily into the evening light. There was no rush, no urgency. Just the quiet, persistent passage of time.
Time hid itself in that wind. In the blades of grass at Melwood. In the growing number of red shirts appearing on Anfield Road.
Quietly, Liverpool's pulse grew stronger.
September 18th.
There was no match at Anfield that day, but thousands of fans still gathered outside the stadium.
The big screen in the plaza broadcasted the evening's match. Premier League, Round 4.
Liverpool traveled to Wales for an away fixture against Swansea City.
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