Jose Mourinho took the blame for Manchester United's wounding defeat to Liverpool as Gary Neville claimed the embattled manager would lose his job by the end of the season at the latest.

Mourinho refused to turn on his players after losing 3-1 to Jurgen Klopp's Premier League leaders – accepting the gulf in class that now exists between the sides.

The Portuguese sounded like a beaten man at Anfield, with the latest defeat casting further doubts over his ability to reverse the club's slide. They now sit 11 points off fourth placed Chelsea and 19 adrift of title challenging Liverpool.

Former United captain Neville is convinced Mourinho's time is up – and it is a matter of when, rather than if he goes.

The Sky Sports pundit said: "United I'm sure will change the manager at the end of the season at the latest. We're all pretty certain of that.

"But the board room is so naive it's unbelievable. To give him an extended contract, knowing his cycle of every three years, was incredible.

"Nobody above him can handle him. They don't know what to do with him, they don't know what to say to him. They don't know what he's going to say at every press conference. It will cost a fortune to lose him now."

Privately United's hierarchy have remained in support of their manager, despite such a torrid campaign.

Defeat to Liverpool was the fifth in the league already, but Mourinho insists he will still lead his side to the Champions League next season.

Having been heavily critical of his players at various times this term – he insisted the scrutiny should be on him at Anfield.

"I am really, really happy with the players I had on the pitch, with their attitude, with their effort, I am more than happy," he said. "Because I am more than happy I assume the responsibilities of the defeat and I want them to be hidden behind me.

They gave absolutely everything. Honest people they gave absolutely everything."

Perhaps most worrying for Mourinho was the manner in which he accepted such a chastening defeat to the club's most hated rivals.

While he believed his side had weathered the storm after Jesse Lingard equalised Sadio Mane's opener, he made little attempt to disguise the superiority of Jurgen Klopp's team.

"We have lots of problems related to physicality," he said. "We have lots of players that I could consider injury problems, because some of our players are always injured and it is not with me, it was before me.

"If you look to the stats with Mr Van Gaal and before Mr Van Gaal with David (Moyes), if you look to that period you have players that are permanently injured. When you are permanently injured, physicality is very difficult to get.

"Then there are qualities that a player has or doesn't have. You cannot improve, you cannot make them have.

"I give you an example: (Andrew) Robertson, (Sadio) Mane, (Mo) Salah, (Georginio) Wijnaldum, (Naby) Keita, Fabinho, they are physical players. On top of that they are good players technically.

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"I also have lots of good players, technically, but we do not have many players with that intensity or physicality. So when the game has high levels of intensity, it is difficult for us.

"Our first 20 minutes was difficult for us, then when we had the ball and the tension went down, when the intensity went down, it was easier for us to be in the game, we manage to have the ball and bring the game into - I would say - our side in the sense of now we are playing in the way we can. And these are our qualities.

"And you like to say sometimes is the manager's choice, you can compare my Porto team with Liverpool. The qualities of the players are there. It was my best team in defensive transition. We lose the ball, we bite like mad dogs and recover the ball after two seconds.

"In Real Madrid I had my best team in direct counter-attack, because I had young (Angel) di Maria, young (Cristiano) Ronaldo, young (Gonzalo) Higuain and young (Karim) Benzema. We killed everybody in defensive transition.

"And in Inter I had my best team in the low-block, people like (Marco) Materazzi, (Walter) Samuel, Lucio, (Ivan) Cordoba, in a low block, you can be there five hours and don't concede a goal. So players make teams play in a certain way."

Two deflected goals from second half substitute Xherdan Shaqiri settled the game and delivered a new blow United's top four hopes.

Mourinho had previously claimed his side would in the Champions League positions by the turn of the year. He altered that target to merely closing the gap on the leading pack and even after defeat, he insists the Champions League is within range.

"I know we lost some other matches, but we played Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City away - probably the three best teams apart from Tottenham," he said. "But we play away and I think we have more possibility to get more points in the second half of the season than the first."