PREMIER LEAGUE Klopp may sneer but Jose's long-ball game gets results
AFTER the match ended, another contest began. This was the one to do with verbal pointscoring and few are more enthusiastic when it comes to this than Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp.
Asked to sum up, Mourinho said: ‘I have a pain in my neck from only looking to the left side.’
The insinuation was that his Manchester United team had all the play in the second half.
Liverpool manager Klopp may as well have complained about neck pain from staring upwards. ‘The ball was 25 minutes in the air,’ he said with reference to the direct approach that enabled United to salvage a point and some pride from this game.
It was all a bit childish but we love it, of course. It’s part of the cut and thrust of football at this pressurised level. This felt like an important game at Old Trafford, and on such occasions it is hard to be generous in the immediate aftermath. Both managers were right, anyway. United had been the dominant force in the second half and they asserted themselves by reverting to the use of longer passes.
Mourinho was happy to admit this, and in some ways this is what sets him apart from Klopp and other managers in the Premier League. The United manager is first and foremost a pragmatic coach and is not ashamed to use a more direct method.
Klopp and others may be a little sniffy about it, but there should be more than one way to get something from a match, and, if Mourinho sees the practice of lumping the ball long towards Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marouane Fellaini as a virtue, then it is hard to argue.
Analysing the match, it made perfect sense. United had spent the first half trying to play a more considered style and had not got very far. Liverpool looked as comfortable as a team ever will in a game such as this.
The visitors were missing one of their best central defenders, though. With Joel Matip withdrawn as a wrangle with FIFA over his eligibility continues, there was no extra height on the Liverpool bench and Mourinho noticed this.
He knew that if he introduced another tall player, Liverpool had a problem — and so it turned out. Fellaini headed against a post in the build- up to Ibrahimovic’s leveller, and at a stroke Mourinho’s plan had worked.
He had changed his line- up, altered his style and enabled his team to save the game.
So, who is the dummy? Certainly not the manager of United and only in the rather warped environment of the modern Premier League would anybody think it right to criticise him. This debate feels especially relevant after the week when Graham Taylor died.
Amid the many warm and fine words written about the former manager of England, Aston Villa and Watford since his passing last Thursday, there has been reference to the direct style of football that he favoured and not all of it has been kind.
It is understandable to a degree. Nobody wants to see two teams hoofing the ball for an hour and a half. Equally, to discard a tactic that can work in times of need is almost negligent.
For Klopp, it never seems to be a consideration. Maybe he does not feel he has the right players to use the tactic.
It is the same at Manchester City, where Pep Guardiola refuses to stray from a creed set in stone from his days at Barcelona. Watching Liverpool in recent weeks has been interesting, though.
At times they look desperately short of another way of playing when Klopp’s tactics are not working. A week yesterday, at home to League Two side Plymouth in the FA Cup third round, was a case in point.
Liverpool are arguably the best side to watch in the country when things are working. But when things are not then they can look terribly blunt. Is there, for example, a team in the Premier League who look less dangerous when they have a corner kick?
The Reds came to Manchester yesterday with an under-strength team and looking short of form. They stood up very well to the examination on the whole.
Klopp’s frustration at conceding a late goal was perhaps responsible for the manner in which he sought