Jose Mourinho blames police for Manchester United's late arrival to drab Valencia draw

Kick-off was delayed by five minutes after United arrived late to Old Trafford

Jose Mourinho blamed the police for Manchester United’s late arrival to their Champions League meeting with Valencia on Tuesday night.

Mourinho claimed that United were “refused” an escort by Greater Manchester Police, which led to their journey from the Lowry Hotel taking 45 minutes longer than usual.

After consultations with Uefa and Slavko Vincic, the match referee, the original 8.00pm kick-off was delayed by five minutes.

Having left the Lowry at 6.00pm, United only arrived at Old Trafford at 7.16pm and began warming up some 25 minutes later.

“We left the hotel at six o’clock, hoping that 30 minutes would be enough, which normally is,” Mourinho explained. “But this time the police refused to do an escort, so we come by ourselves.

“We took from the Lowry Hotel, 75 minutes. Uefa were nice, the referee was nice to allow us to start the game five minutes later because we at least need half an hour to be prepared.

“But it was not a problem with the club organisation,” he added. “We anticipate everything that it could be dangerous, in the sense of arriving late, but we were informed the police refused an escort.”

In response, GMP claimed that the decision not to escort United’s team bus to Tuesday night’s match was part of a force-wide change in protocol that United were consulted on and aware of.

Chief Inspector Andy Sutcliffe, GMP’s silver commander for Tuesday's tie, said: “All police deployments are carried out following a comprehensive risk assessment process and specifically in respect of escort team buses, are only ever undertaken on occasions when there is intelligence or information to suggest a risk of threat or harm to the players.

“GMP has previously used police vehicles to accompany a team’s coach but after a review of our core policing responsibilities, it was decided that we would no longer provide this service at every fixture.”

Sutcliffe added: “We consulted with the relevant football clubs over a period of months to allow them adequate time to plan ahead for their journeys to the stadium.

“Every fixture is assessed individually and we will continue to work with all clubs to provide an appropriate policing response.”