Manchester United at Liverpool yielded nothing but a tedious and uninteresting goalless draw today; just like last year’s meeting at Anfield. Neither side won, but viewers and fans lost. People watching the game and tweeting along on social media, had to get really creative to find entertainment value from this one.
Criticizing announcer and United club legend Phil Neville was one method they employed.
After the match, each manager blamed the other one for what transpired, as both United boss Jose Mourinho and Liverpool leader Jurgen Klopp said their adversary’s defensive tactics prevented any scoring from occurring.
Klopp hit out at Mourinho’s tactics, saying that perhaps you can get away with parking the bus at United, but he could never get away with doing so at Liverpool.
As for Mourinho, he told Sky Sports after the match:
“In the first half, while we had energy in our midfield, we were very much in control. We had no problems and they had one chance. Apart from that we had total control. When they had the balls they didn’t find any solutions. We had a great chance with Lukaku and a couple more.”
“In the second half, I was feeling that I need my bench and I had no bench. I need to play against Henderson, Can and Wijnaldum with power and energy and no power, no energy.
“We were playing with only two midfield players and nobody else to compensate that. So progressively we were losing some control and they were having a little bit more initiative and in the end, a point.
“Pogba, Fellaini and Carrick are three midfield players that we don’t have. They played 90 minutes with Can, Henderson and Wijnaldum. I thought, playing at home, seven points behind us, they are going to change but they never did.
“They kept three midfield players in the centre of the pitch and I had no chance to answer.”
The Portugese admitted that he had no counter Klopp’s three midfielders approach.
More from Mourinho via The Liverpool Echo: “Well, you were at home and you don’t move anything? I don’t know. I was waiting for that. He (Klopp) didn’t.
“I’m not criticizing him. I think he did well, honestly. He didn’t let the game break. Lingard and Rashford were waiting for game to be broken but the game wasn’t broken.…For me second half was a bit of chess but my opponent didn’t open the door for me to win the game.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.