Jose Mourinho reveals reason why Manchester United were late arriving on coach for crunch Valencia clash

The team bus was caught in traffic on the way to Old Trafford last night, with Uefa agreeing to delay the game by five minutes.

And Mourinho insists cops refused to escort his team from the Lowry Hotel, with the club not to blame for the players arriving less than 43 minutes before kick-off.

He said: "We left the hotel at six o'clock, hoping that 30 minutes would be enough, which it normally is.

"But this time the police refused to do an escort so we came by ourselves.

"We took from the Lowry Hotel, we took 75 minutes.


"The referee was nice to allow us to start the game 5 minutes later, because at least we need half an hour to be prepared. But it was not a problem with the club organisation.

"We try everything. We anticipate the fact that maybe it could be dangerous, in the sense of arriving late, but we were informed the police refused an escort."

Chief Inspector Andy Sutcliffe – who was responsible for the fixture – denied any wrongdoing by police.

He insisted: “All police deployments are carried out following a comprehensive risk assessment process and specifically in respect of escort team busses, 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.

“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.”

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