Jurgen Klopp has sympathy for Jose Mourinho but suggests sacked Manchester United boss paid the price

Jurgen Klopp has suggested that Jose Mourinho has faced the consequences of failing to live up to expectations at Manchester United.

Mourinho was sacked as United manager today after slipping 19 points behind Klopp’s Liverpool, the Premier League leaders, with a 3-1 defeat at Anfield.

United are sixth in the table, 11 points outside the top four and with their hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League disappearing quickly.

Klopp said that, although he felt sympathy after seeing the sacking of a fellow manager, it was clear that Mourinho’s two-and-a-half-year reign at Old Trafford had not worked out.

The former Chelsea manager won the Europa League and the EFL Cup in his first season, but suffered a disappointing second campaign, with United finishing in second, 19 points behind champions Manchester City.

Klopp said: “He wanted to be successful at United and he was, but then it didn’t work out in the way everybody wanted it to.

“Then you have to take the consequences. That’s how it is in our job. I always said it.

“It’s the same for me and if the club thinks there is someone who can do it better, then they have to change.

“Today that’s how it is. There’s no looking at how we played in the last game; if they think there is someone who can do it better, change it now.

“In our jobs, that can be very expensive for the clubs. That is actually the only thing that saves our lives sometimes, but that’s the situation.”

Klopp, however, suggested that Mourinho will be back in management quickly if he wants to be, arguing that clubs will be keen to take on someone with such a strong record of winning trophies.

Mourinho has won the Champions League with Porto and Inter Milan, in addition to lifting domestic league titles in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain.

The Liverpool manager added: “It’s not that I don’t feel for him or whatever. But I have to say that if a manager got the sack in the Championship or in League One or League Two, that’s a bad moment because you don’t know if they will get another job and stuff like that.

“If Jose wants to have another job, he has it in two days. That’s really easy.

“We talk about a really high level. But I know how ambitious he is, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t take it [the sacking] that easily.”

Mourinho’s position at United has been under scrutiny for much of the season, and there were reports that he was facing the sack in early October, amid widespread claims of squad disunity.

Klopp added: “I can imagine in the past few months especially, things were not a joy for anybody, especially not for him. It’s not nice that he had to face these questions every day, that’s a problem.

“But apart from that, nobody can take away all the things he won. I wish personally that he has that in his mind when he leaves and not a few other things that happened in the past few months.

“He’s an outstanding manager. About all the rest of it, I have no idea; you have to ask other people. The best to ask would be him, only he can say what’s happened.”