Jose Mourinho slammed Liverpool for being overly cautious in the 0-0 draw against his Manchester United team on Saturday.
The United manager claimed his side were given no opportunity to push forward because his opposite number Jurgen Klopp flooded the midfield.
Jordan Henderson, Emre Can and Georginio Wijnaldum each played the full 90 minutes of the clash at Anfield but the home side were held in a frustrating stalemate despite dominating the match.
The Reds were on top for long periods and peppered the United goal with 19 shots, but a combination of outstanding goalkeeping by David de Gea and poor finishing denied them victory.
Mourinho told Sky Sports’ live coverage of the match immediately afterwards: “They played 90 minutes with Can, Henderson and Wijnaldum. I thought, ‘playing at home, seven points behind us they are going to change’. They never did.
“They played man for man in attack, they kept the three midfield players in the centre of the pitch and I had no chance to answer. I tried to play with more speed in attack, with more creation, fresh people in [Jesse] Lingard and [Marcus] Rashford, not fresh at all but injured, but we couldn’t find situations in the last 15 to 20 minutes.”
The point was enough to take United – with nine clean sheets in their past 10 league games – to the top of the table, one point ahead of Manchester City, who were due to host Stoke City at 3pm.
By contrast, Liverpool climbed one place to sixth with 13 points from their eight league matches.
OPINION
Mourinho was getting his retaliation in early as he clearly anticipated the reaction from critics that he had murdered another marquee match. The Portugese killed the game and he knew it. That’s his right, and it was up to Liverpool to break down the expensively assembled United team. That they could not is a credit to United’s organisational strength. But, Mourinho’s attempt at manipulating the media was utterly transparent. His team were certainly the more cautious one, although Klopp could and should have been more aggressive with his substitutions.