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Michael Carrick's price tag has often been used as a stick to clout him by those to spend £18.6m to secure him from Spurs in July 2006.

The sceptics - and yes, I was one of them - questioned such lavish expenditure on a player who, although gifted, was not even close to establishing himself with England when he arrived at Old Trafford.

It is the clearest indication of Carrick's development into the complete modern midfield player that he now looks something of a bargain when set against some of the fees being demanded - and in certain cases actually paid - in the current climate.

Mention the £18.6m now and the silence is deafening, because to watch him at close quarters in at Old Trafford was to witness a player coming to full maturity.

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Liverpool co-owners land at Anfield on Sunday amid heavy turbulence - even by the rocky standards of the Rafael Benitez regime.

And if they glance behind them in the directors' box they will see, if he is in attendance, another Premier League power broker who has enjoyed happier times, namely Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Meanwhile, just along the M62 on Saturday evening, Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United have it within their power to ensure the trio shift even more uncomfortably in their seats on what could be a pivotal Premier League weekend.

If it will put them five points clear at the top and conceivably make the encounter at Anfield a must-win for Benitez and his Chelsea counterpart Luiz Felipe Scolari.

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Everton's resurgence in reduced circumstances has gone almost unnoticed amid the switches of fortune in the title race and the managerial spats across - but two displays at Liverpool sum up the renaissance fashioned by manager David Moyes.

Moyes took Everton to Anfield for a Premier League game on Monday stripped of virtually all of his attacking resources and without suspended £15m midfield man Marouane Fellaini.

Everton earned a courtesy of Tim Cahill's late header, and returned for still without Fellaini but further depleted by the loss of influential midfield orchestrator Mikel Arteta.

No-one would suggest Everton did anything other than mount a rearguard action to earn a replay at Goodison Park, but equally no-one should diminish the standard of their defensive excellence.

For a team with no strikers, Everton have found a way of - for now at least - .

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Rafael Benitez was defiant - no surprise given that he has been little else in two weeks of turbulence created by his decision to wage public war inside and outside Anfield.

as they chase the title that has escaped them for 19 years.

And the merest suggestion that Benitez himself had cranked up the pressure with his own behaviour, first via a public attack on Ferguson then by revealing his rejection of a new contract, was swatted away emphatically.

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Manchester City - - are not living in the real world by pursuing a £107m deal for AC Milan's Brazil superstar Kaka.

He has a point. The real world for Manchester City comes when they continue what may yet become a fight against relegation from the Premier League .

And that real world pits them up against , a by-word for the sound and sensible financial management City have been accused of casting aside in their pursuit of Kaka.

Wigan, with careful spending and calculated sales such as that of and , have the stabililty and healthy league position City do not look like achieving any time soon.

But should City be the target for such criticism and churlishness for chasing a dream?

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If Sir Alex Ferguson had mapped out his weekend on a sheet of A4 paper - in vogue after Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez used one as a prop to aid an attack on his Manchester United counterpart - it would have turned out exactly as his script decreed.

In Ferguson's ideal world , but other than that it was just about perfect from both a psychological and footballing perspective.

The 67-year-old Scot almost skipped down the Old Trafford touchline at the conclusion of , perhaps mentally ticking off a list of jobs well done to set himself up for the crucial battles ahead.

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Britannia Stadium, Stoke

Liverpool's most impressive performer at Stoke City was combative, confident and up for the fight - sadly for their hopes of turning the screw on Manchester United and Chelsea, the man in question was manager Rafael Benitez.

Benitez was the only story in town on a freezing Saturday night in the Potteries

And he marched into the media suite and stunned those of us expecting a straight bat - or perhaps even the appearance of assistant Sammy Lee rather than the man himself - with .

The problem for Liverpool was that while Benitez was bristling with open defiance and firing statements of positive intent in the direction of Old Trafford, the men charged with the task of winning the title were doing exactly the opposite.

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There is only one thing worse than being talked about by Sir Alex Ferguson - and that is not being talked about by Sir Alex Ferguson.

So Liverpool's status as serious title contenders received the official rubber-stamp when Ferguson fired his first barb - a mild one by his own acerbic standards admittedly - in the direction of the Premier League leaders.

As a general rule, Ferguson ignores those who cannot harm Manchester United, so Rafael Benitez will have glowed with satisfaction when the old streetfighter.

And the pressure will turn up another notch for the main title protagonists this weekend when Liverpool face the intimidating test of a trip to Stoke City on Saturday and Manchester United meet Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday.

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It's that time of the year again - when a much-loved colleague advances with a tabloid in his hand jabbing a finger angrily at dwindling attendances for .

This is then followed up by full reading of every weakened team sent out by Premier League managers who place the great competition low on their list of priorities, with special emphasis on individuals we may never have heard of before, and may never hear of again.

An eagerly-anticipated annual ritual ends when he is confronted with the possibility of , and his eyes mist over at the prospect of a day out at Wembley in May.

The message is the same though - the FA Cup, in his eyes, is finished. The glory days, or the glory glory days as he would call them, are gone.

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