Manchester United dogged their way to a 2-1 win at home to their great rivals Liverpool this weekend, to seize the initiative in the Race To Be Second To Man City. It was a quintessential Mourinho: he targeted an opposition weakness, (the space between young Trent Alexander-Arnold and the reliably useless Dejan Lovren), made hay (two Marcus Rashford goal by the 24th minute) and then sat about defending their position. United ceded territory and possession to Liverpool in the second half, and survived an onslaught in spite of Eric Bailly's comedy own goal.
After the game on Sky Sports, Graeme Souness was unimpressed with United's style of play, saying that it would have been deemed "unacceptable" had United not "gotten away with it". Jamie Carragher argued against Souness, saying that there was no element of United getting away with the game but instead nullified the threat of Liverpool.
Souness spoke in response to Mourinho's assertion that Liverpool dominated with the ball, and that United dominated without it.
If they had come unstuck today, the away team having 68% of the ball and coming here and winning is totally unacceptable. I don't understand him saying that they were in control when they didn't have the ball.
Today, they got away with it. If they don't get the win out of it, we'd have said that they should have kept the ball better, they should have got up the pitch more, taken the game to Liverpool. He got away with it today. Jose says there that he isn't interested in what we say, which means that he watches us. He can say that now because he won the game.
Watch it below.
