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Manchester United Fan View: Mourinho takes Ferguson’s Anfield decree to a whole new level

Gregory Wakeman
·Contributor
Jose Mourinho parked a bus or two across the Anfield pitch
Jose Mourinho parked a bus or two across the Anfield pitch

It is understandable that Manchester United fans look back at Sir Alex Ferguson’s era with rose-tinted glasses. All of those Premier League, FA Cups, League Cups, and European Cups will do that to a supporter.

So much so that it is easy to forget just how pragmatic the Scot was whenever he travelled to Anfield. Ferguson was so wary of the damage that a defeat to Liverpool could do to his Manchester United team that the longer his tenure went on the more defensive he would set up his side.

Gary Neville recently lifted the lid on Ferguson’s mentality surrounding games at Liverpool, recalling to Jamie Carragher on “Gary Neville’s Soccerbox,” “He could not stand losing at Anfield – and if we won there, it didn’t matter how we played – it was like the best thing in the world.”

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Jose Mourinho hasn’t even flirted with doing the latter during his two trips to Anfield as Manchester United manager. Last year he needed to stop the rot after a run of unimpressive displays, which rendered their 0-0 draw a necessary evil.

This season was a little bit more complicated, though. From the outside looking in it looks as though Mourinho believed a defeat wouldn’t just immediately stunt his side’s own impressive start to the season, but could prove to be a catalyst for Jurgen Klopp’s underwhelming Liverpool.


But while United fans couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed with how unthreatening they were on Saturday afternoon, Mourinho was looking at the forest not the single tree. United are still unbeaten. United kept another clean sheet. United have now played their hardest game of the season. And Liverpool are almost not certainly too far adrift to be title contenders.

Gulf

Manchester City’s decimation of Stoke was all some pundits and journalists needed to highlight the supposed gulf in class between the top two. But Mourinho will deal with Manchester City and Pep Guardiola in a couple of weeks time at Old Trafford.

In the meantime, United are still just two points adrift of their supposedly imperious cross-city rivals, while Mourinho will already be plotting how to knock both City and Guardiola off the perch that has quickly been made for them. If he doesn’t, though, then the Anfield point will immediately start to look paltry, and more questions marks will be raised about his diminishing big-game mentality.