A wasteful Standard Liege fell to three points off the title pace after posting a scoreless draw at unheralded FCV Dender on Saturday night.

Oguchi Onyewu went his typical 90 minutes in the heart of defense.

Les Rouches began attacking former coach Johan Boskamp's side early, with an offside flag cutting short an Igor De Camargo foray in the ninth minute.

Milan Jovanovic was teed up from the slot in the 22nd minute, only to fire directly into the belly of Dender keeper Erwin Lemmens.

Standard had a pair of good looks at goal in the 53rd minute, but Jovanovic and Axel Witsel failed to find the net.

Grégory Dufer fired over a De Camargo rebound in the 64th minute, and seconds later, Jovanovic misfired a sitter.

With 10 minutes to play Rorys Espinoza stopped Dender's best opportunity of the night with a paw save on Henri Munyaneza's chipped try.

The clock ticked away, leaving Standard to turn their focus to next Sunday's visit from Genk, their final league contest of 2007.

Line-ups
DEN - Erwin Lemmens, Younous Oumouri, Predrag Filipovic, Timothy Derijck, Steven De Petter, Samuel Neva, Daan De Pever (Sebastian Dufoor 58'), Henri Munyaneza, David Destorme (Gregoire Neels 84'), Norman Sylla, Gabriel Iribarren (Steve Barbé 89')

SL - Rorys Espinoza; Dante Bonfim Costa, Oguchi Onyewu, Marcos Camozzato (Frédéric Dupré 46'), Mohammed Sarr, Marouane Felliani, Grégory Dufer (Salim Toama 72'), Steven Defour, Milan Jovanovic (Marcos Ingrao 83'), Igor De Camargo, Axel Witsel