It is worth noting this result stretched Liverpool's run of clean sheets to 10 games and Manchester United would still be in Europe if they had a defence half this organised, although such statistics are meaningless when you play a team as unambitious as Middlesbrough. The visitors managed to make hardly any use of a quartet of talented attackers in Mark Viduka, Aiyegbeni Yakubu, Fabio Rochemback and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and when Chris Riggott was sent off five minutes from the end, with Boro two down, Steve McClaren hilariously sacrificed Yakubu to send on another centre-half in Ugo Ehiogu.
Without wanting to detract from Morientes' excellent finishing, he was not the story of this game. It was in fact another episode in the endlessly fascinating Peter Crouch saga. Last week the hard-working Crouch finally broke his duck and basked in Anfield adulation. Unfortunately, he cannot play Wigan every Saturday. He was back to being ineffective in this game as Liverpool spent a laboured 66 minutes lumping high balls in his direction, with the look of haughty disdain on Djibril Cisse's face growing more pronounced by the minute as the substitute paced the touchline.
When Crouch came off, it was not Cisse who went on but Luis Garcia, and the effect was immediate. Crouch is not the most mobile of players, Garcia is and Liverpool instantly became more dangerous. Middlesbrough had been coping comfortably with the tall guy, but when the small, nippy one came on they shipped two goals in 11 minutes. What was shaping up to be the dullest of goalless draws was transformed suddenly into an easy victory, all by the simple expedient of removing a static target man and replacing him with someone less predictable.
Rafael Benitez insisted Crouch played well, but he always says that. If he had been playing that well he would not have been hauled off. The fact is that Liverpool play differently when Crouch is on the field. They either seek to use him as a distraction or, less subtly, ping the ball towards him from all points of the pitch. Without him they are forced to be more inventive and, to the relief of their fans, they can still do that when necessary.
Liverpool's first 66 minutes boiled down to a succession of half-chances and routine stops by Mark Schwarzer, plus one thrilling John Arne Riise volley from a corner by Steven Gerrard that might have been goal of the season had it kept two feet lower.
The closest Middlesbrough came to a goal in the first half was a galloping run and shot from Gareth Southgate, which tells you a lot, although Viduka wasted a great chance to put them in front at the start of the second half when he failed to beat Jose Manuel Reina when given a clear sight of goal by Rochemback's pass.
'That was a defining moment,' McClaren said. 'You don't get many chances here. Then we had a hasty refereeing decision that cost us a defender and the second goal was two yards offside, so we've got nothing today. It's very frustrating.'
That's as maybe, although McClaren offered no excuse for Morientes being left on his own in front of goal to collect Garcia's accurate cross and beat Schwarzer for Liverpool's first goal. He might have had a point about Riggott's second yellow card. The contact with Gerrard was slight, but after receiving his first yellow only five minutes earlier, Riggott needed to be more careful.
Morientes did appear to start in an offside position for his second goal, although as the ball was played through to him by a misdirected defensive header from Frank Queudrue, it was hard for anyone without the benefit of replays to say whether he was active or passive and at which point one became the other. Anyone who knows the correct answer to that question should write it on a postcard and send it to Keith Hackett at the Premier League.
MAN OF THE MATCH
Fernando Morientes Before the striker's two goals, it was a toss-up between the elegant Xabi Alonso and the more eye-catching but slightly more wasteful Steven Gerrard. But you cannot argue with Morientes' contribution. Apart from winning the match, it gave the Kop something to cheer other than the size of Sami Hyypia's head bandage.
