Jose Mourinho appeals to fans to keep it clean in Liverpool v Manchester United crunch

Jose Mourinho has pleaded with Liverpool and Manchester United supporters not to become embroiled in a vile war of words making a mockery of the respective tragedies involving both clubs.

The two north-west rivals meet at Liverpool’s Anfield ground on Monday, the first meeting between the teams since Mourinho took over as United manager in pre-season.

Both clubs have already issued a statement imploring their own supporters to refrain from tasteless chants that make reference to the Hillsborough disaster that left 96 people dead during Liverpool’s 1989 FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground or the Munich air crash that killed 23 people as United flew back from a European Cup tie in 1958.

Mourinho echoed the call for supporters not to overstep the bounds of common decency during an eloquent news conference on Friday.

“In football we have some football tragedies, if you can speak of them like that, which is the big match we lost, some mistake a player did and you can make fun of that in some way,” said Mourinho.

“But the human tragedy is something much more serious, and I think is the last thing somebody should use in a football pitch, because they were really big tragedies.

“So I would be really sad if in such a big football match that was a negative point,” he said.