Jose Mourinho has cited a lack of physicality from his players as one of the reasons his side came off second best against Liverpool this afternoon. He first off claimed that his side had played ‘in relation to their qualities’ after conceding a whopping 36 shots at Anfield and when he was asked to explain what that meant by the reporter he went into a rant about his sides’ injury problems.
"First of all, we have lots of problems related to physicality, we have lots of players that I could consider injury problems, because some of our players are always injured and is not with me, was before me.
"If you look to the stats with Mr Van Gaal and before Mr Van Gaal with David, if you look to that period you have players that are permanently injured, when you are permanently injured, physicality is very difficult to get. Then there are qualities that a player has or doesn't have. You cannot improve, you cannot make them have. I give you an example: Robertson, Mane, Salah, Wijnaldum, Keita, Fabinho, they are physical players, on top of that they are good players technically, I also have lots of good players, technically, but we do not have many players with that intensity or physicality.”
Mourinho was full of praise for Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson who he singled out for being able to make 'a 100 metre sprint per minute, absolutely incredible.’ It’s clear that United have a problem on the training field and with their manager, as with all the money spent they looked way off the pace against their bitter rivals, a point that Gary Neville drove home at full-time.