Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has admitted that his side lacked the midfield energy required to overcome Liverpool in Saturday afternoon's stalemate.
The sides played out a goalless draw at Anfield in a game that saw the wasteful Reds squander a number of chances to get one over on their North-West rivals.
Mourinho acknowledges that United faded as the match transpired due to a dearth of options to call upon in the middle of the pitch, having lost Paul Pogba, Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick to injury prior to their trip to Merseyside.
"In the first half, while we had energy in our midfield, we were very much in control and had no problems," he told Sky Sports News. "They had one chance after a corner when we didn't press the man, but apart from that we had total control, we had the ball at times and when they had the ball they didn't find a solution. We had a great chance with [Romelu] Lukaku, and a couple more in second half, but I needed my bench.
"To play against [Emre] Can, [Georginio] Wijnaldum and [Jordan] Henderson you need power and energy, and there was only two midfielders so I had no one to compensate that. With Philippe Coutinho coming in and making it a four-man midfield at times, the fact I only had [Ander] Herrera and [Nemanja] Matic meant we progressively lost some control, they had a bit more initiative.
"If I have solutions on the bench I could have done things that I have before this season, like at Swansea and Southampton. But I don't like to speak about it, it's quite unfair for Herrera and Matic because they gave everything, but we were without Pogba, Fellaini and Carrick. Can, Henderson and Wijnaldum played 90 minutes and I thought playing a home, seven points behind us, Liverpool would change.
"They never did. They went man for man in attack, kept three midfield players in the centre of the pitch and I had no chance to answer. I tried to react by bringing more speed into the attack with Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford, who was not fresh at all and injured, but then we couldn't find situations in the last 20 minutes."
Liverpool and United have drawn three league games in a row for the first time since 1921.
Daniel Lewis
