Manchester United will likely finish second
Manchester United 2-1 Liverpool. The win gave Man United a 5 points cushion over its opponents.
With the defeat Liverpool set back to forth place following Tottenham’s victory on Sunday. Although the top 4 is still undecided the race will be tight until the last match probably. Manchester United have the edge over the rest of the clubs.
Man Utd coach Mourinho on the win:
“A perfect result. Three points, which are very important, but a perfect performance? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I say perfect in relation to what the game gave us in the first half, it gave us the opportunity to be aggressive, direct, fast, intense and to score goals. Probably more – probably a third as Juan Mata’s shot would have been [an] amazing and fantastic [goal]. The second half was a different match and we adapted to it.
The most important thing is the victory, the three points. Apart from that, against a team like Liverpool, you do not win if the performance is not good. I think, in the first half, we were very strong, very aggressive with a great intention to go and to hurt and, if possible, to score. In the second half, Liverpool were more dominant but it was the kind of dominance without danger. In some matches, David [De Gea] made phenomenal saves and today he didn’t make one single important save in the game. So, in the second half, we were in control of Liverpool’s dominance.”
Liverpool coach Klopp on the loss:
“It’s really difficult to take. The mistakes were obvious – around the second balls we were not there and we cannot leave Dejan alone in the challenge there and nobody’s around for the second ball. It doesn’t work like this,” the boss explained.
Romelu Lukaku is strong in these challenges, so if you cannot avoid the long ball then you have to be there to help your mate for the second ball. We didn’t, so that was the problem around the two goals [and] they could use these situations.
Before the two goals, after the two goals, I thought we were dominant. We don’t ignore the goals we conceded, but if you ignore them for a second you would say, ‘OK, that’s how you have to play.”
