Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho was not to blame for poor Anfield clash... hosts Liverpool were dreadful during the first half
* Jose Mourinho has come under fire for 'parking the bus' at Liverpool
* Manchester United had just one shot on target and only 35% possession
* Jurgen Klopp's side failed to break United down during Monday's contest
One of the abiding images of Manchester United’s last visit to Anfield before this week was of an irritated Sir Alex Ferguson chuntering feverishly in to the ear of chief executive Ed Woodward in the directors’ box. As Louis van Gaal’s hopeless team succumbed 2-0 in the Europa League last Spring, it was clear what Ferguson was saying.
Ferguson was at Anfield again on Monday and clearly in a better mood. He would not have been any more entertained than the rest of us by a very poor game but the former United manager was at least able to recognise a group of players functioning properly under the command of a proper modern coach.
Manchester United have improved under Mourinho. Admittedly, they were starting from a pretty low ebb but they have improved.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho is being criticised for 'parking the bus'
That is why they were able to leave Anfield with a point they deserved against a fancied Liverpool team and that is why, in a poll run by the Manchester Evening News , 82 per cent of supporters said they were happy with what they had seen.
It is these supporters to whom Mourinho is obliged. To them and to the United board and not to the marketing men at Sky Sports who understandably ramped the hype around Monday’s game up to almost unprecedented levels.
Mourinho is a sports coach. His job is to move his team forward and he will do it in his own pragmatic way. This is the man the United board hired. In football, defending was once considered an art form too and on Merseyside the Portuguese showed that some coaches at least have not forgotten that.
Some say the way United played was an affront to the history of the club. They did not have a shot of note on target. That view is understandable but says more about the limitations of United’s squad than it does about the approach of their manager.
Mourinho travelled west on Monday knowing that if his team stood toe to toe with a more confident, in-form Liverpool team then the chances are United would have lost 4-2. Sky would have loved that and so would the rest of us but the poll on the MEN website would have looked very different.
The current United have deep and entrenched limitations, born of poor planning at the back end of the Ferguson era and three seasons of regression under David Moyes and Van Gaal. Mourinho will address these over time and if he can’t manage it then he, too, will be asked to make way.
United have their problems – such as Paul Pogba’s form – but to blame the visitors for this poor game is unfair and inaccurate. They were competitive.
There has been little criticism of Liverpool simply, it seems, because they finished the game strongly and brought two good saves from David de Gea. But it was all relative to how dreadful they had been during a first half that actually saw United begin as the more aggressive and assertive side.
Jurgen Klopp’s team were strong favourites but it was the Liverpool players who failed to carry out their coach’s plan. On the whole the failure was theirs and what was apparent once again with Liverpool – just as it was under Brendan Rodgers – was the absence of a Plan B – of another way of playing – when things aren’t going well.
On Radio Two they described the game as the worst football match of all time and played a highlights package that lasted 16 seconds and comprised commentary only of De Gea’s two saves.
It was all very amusing and captured the prevailing mood of disappointment very well. But when you think about it, we the viewers and listeners were victims of our own lack of perspective ahead of kick-off.
This is sport and as such it should never be taken for granted. Sometimes the unexpected happens. Equally, sometimes nothing happens.
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