José Mourinho defended his players after their latest stuttering performance, claiming he was pleased with the effort and commitment even if there were things he would rather not say about certain aspects of the 0-0 draw with Valencia.

“I was pleased with the improvement from Saturday,” the Manchester United manager said. “I was not pleased with the result, but it is not a bad result.”

Asked whether the team was low on confidence Mourinho did not give a direct answer, even though the evidence is clear. “There are things it is difficult for me to say, I do not want to attract any more criticism for being too open,” he said. “I would prefer to say that last season we finished second in the league, were runners-up in the FA Cup and topped our Champions League group. I thought that was a fantastic season and I know the reasons why.”

Manchester United show little sign of improvement in draw with Valencia Read more

If that seemed to be a veiled reference – yes, another one – to the fact that United failed to upgrade their squad with an extra central defender in summer, Mourinho was more explicit in a television interview when he claimed his centre-halves do not have the technical ability to play out from the back. Eric Bailly in particular appeared to support his argument, though in fairness his partnership with Chris Smalling was the sixth different partnership United have fielded in central defence in 10 games this season.

One of Mourinho’s fiercest critics has proved to be Paul Scholes, who said on BT Sport before the game that Mourinho was embarrassing the club and was lucky not to have been sacked already. “I am not interested in that, I don’t need to know what Paul Scholes said,” Mourinho said. “He has freedom of speech just like anyone else, just like the fans who were chanting ‘attack, attack’ in the second half. People can say what they like, especially Manchester United supporters, because I respect their point of view.”

Mourinho said the reason the kick-off had been delayed by five minutes was that the police failed to provide an escort from the team coach, which then took 75 minutes in heavy traffic to travel the short distance from the Lowry hotel to the stadium. “It’s a journey we normally do in less than half an hour,” the manager explained. “We tried everything, but we were informed that the police had refused to give us an escort to the game so we were late.”

Greater Manchester Police said escorts were provided only “on occasions when there is intelligence or information to suggest a risk of threat or harm to the players”. Its statement added: “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.”