There is no right or wrong way in football - style doesn't get you points, it's the result that matters
I THINK we can all understand just why Jose Mourinho played the way he did when he went to Anfield earlier this season.
But I know which game I would prefer to watch and it was yesterday’s match-up as Liverpool emerged from a brilliant game with Manchester City as 4-3 winners.
United’s goalless draw on October 14 is hardly the DVD anyone wanted in their Christmas stocking last month.
Yet Mourinho, you could argue, got his tactics spot on that day.
On a big occasion he nullified Liverpool and refused to let them play their game.
That was his way of getting a result and in many ways he deserves as much credit for that as Pep Guardiola does for his part in a spectacle that had us all breathless yesterday.
The difference between the two Manchester managers is that one is willing to adapt and the other will play his way no matter what the opposition.
Guardiola will never shut up shop, never park the bus, never kill a game.
To be fair, it has worked pretty well for him, as has Mourinho’s management that has brought eight titles to Guardiola’s six and an equal amount of Champions League’s with two apiece.
It’s just we know right now which style everyone would rather watch and which way is working.
This minor blip will have done nothing to dent the notion that City are still winning this Premier League and in a way we have maybe never seen in this country.
So credit Guardiola for sticking to his guns and trying to outgun a side who have not lost at home in the league this season and, before yesterday, had conceded just four goals. City scored three and still lost the match.
While teams have come close to stopping Guardiola’s troops by dropping deep and plugging the gaps, the way to actually beat them was on show at Anfield.
The thing is you need a team with the skill, pace and energy of Liverpool to do it. Yes, City defended badly but it was Liverpool’s relentless pressing that forced the mistakes that lead to the goals.
Guardiola could have negated this by just lobbing the ball over the top of the high press and taking it from there.
He was never going to do that.
He trusted his players to play round the problem. It was just on this occasion Liverpool were better.
Proof that even without Philippe Coutinho this team is not far away.
With Virgil van Dijk they will already be better at the back.
A couple more players with the huge £145milion fee they received from Barcelona for Coutinho and I can see them challenging next season — a decent goalkeeper would be a good start.
So thank you Pep for putting on this show but let’s not forget it was Mourinho who came away from this fixture with the point.
There is no right or wrong way to play football if you get results.
