Man United were without Edwin Van Der Sar, Nemanja Vidic and Wayne Rooney. Tomasz Kuszczak started in goal, Jonny Evans replaced Vidic and Javier Hernandez lined up with Dimitar Berbatov up front for United.
Kenny Dalglish's first game back in charge of Liverpool didn't get off to the best of starts after Manchester United were awarded a penalty after just 35 seconds. Daniel Agger caught Dimitar Berbatov inside the area, Ryan Giggs calmly stepped up and hit the ball past Pepe Reina in the Liverpool goal.
Liverpool's task got even harder after Steven Gerrard was shown a straight red after a horrendous two-footed lunge on Michael Carrick just after the half hour mark.
Evans was close to giving United a 2-0 lead after heading the ball against the post just before half time.
The game improved during the second half with United coming close a few times but Liverpool did improve after the break.
Man United's first substitution was to bring Anderson on for Darren Fletcher. Anderson's first contribution to the game was to bring down Fernando Torres. The resulting free kick saw Fabio Aurelio draw a save out of Kuszczak and get the ball behind for a corner.
Minutes later it was Man United on the attack, Berbatov's strike at goal was saved by Reina which was followed by a moment of madness. A shot from Rafael Da Silva was saved by Reina, the ball fell to Berbatov, his shot was saved by Reina, Rafael then had another effort towards goal, saved by Reina, then Giggs tried to get the ball past the Liverpool keeper and this time it went for a corner. From the resulting corner taken by Giggs, Berbatov had a strike at goal but Reina saved again.
With just over 15 minutes remaining, Sir Alex Ferguson brought on former Liverpool striker Michael Owen on to replace Hernandez. Just after the United substitution, Dalglish brought Torres off, David Ngog replaced him. Ngog immediately tried to pull a goal back but his header fell wide of the goal.
Man United managed to hold on to the 1-0 lead and are now through to the next round. They now face an away trip to Southampton in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
