Kenny Dalglish, who in 1989-90 was the last Liverpool manager to win a league title, was honoured earlier this month by having Anfield's Centenary Stand renamed in his honour. In attendance at the ceremony was Sir Alex Ferguson, Dalglish's one-time adversary, whose name has adorned Old Trafford's North Stand since 2011.

With Liverpool currently ninth in the Premier League, Klopp lags behind the standards set by Dalglish and the traditions inherited from managers like Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly. Meanwhile, Mourinho may have United on better footing than David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, but it is against Ferguson that history will ultimately judge him.

Last week, Ferguson made another public appearance. Salford City FC, owned by the now famous "Class of '92" that he gave a chance to, were opening their newly rebuilt Peninsula Stadium, and Ferguson, guest of honour, delivered a design for life in a short speech that showed retirement has not dimmed his statesmanship.

"Forget ability, to achieve in life, you need something extra inside you, a dynamo that says 'I'm going somewhere'," Ferguson said. "Working hard is definitely a talent, believe me."

Then came a comment that might burn Mourinho's ears. It came six days after United's 0-0 draw at Liverpool, a display that had been devoid of adventure. "We never won every game, but we'd love to have, and we tried to," said Ferguson.

Veteran journalist Patrick Barclay has written biographies of Mourinho, Ferguson and most recently Sir Matt Busby. "When he came to United, I thought Mourinho would respect the Busby-Ferguson tradition, and only park the bus when he needed to," he told ESPN FC.

"Ferguson wasn't above it, even Busby was cautious at times on special and rare occasions but I was shocked that they were so defensive at Liverpool. This wasn't even against a rival for the title. I worry for him if he believes a 0-0 draw is an acceptable result in anything other than a two-legged tie."

United's deliberate slowdown at Anfield has served to halt the momentum of a team that had scored 20 goals in seven previous matches. A scratchy and rather fortunate 1-0 win at Benfica was followed by last Saturday's 2-1 loss at Huddersfield, and they now lag five points behind leaders Manchester City. At City, Pep Guardiola gambles on playing Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva together in a three-man midfield, and thus far, his team have been all but untouchable.

And meanwhile, with a couple of barbed references to club finances and a cooing towards Paris Saint-Germain -- "at the moment in Paris there is something special" -- it appears as if Mourinho may not intend to be around for the long haul.

If Mourinho's inherent caution goes against United's traditions, then Klopp is also not cut from the same cloth as his gloried antecedents. Dalglish's late-1980s and early-1990s team played attacking football but the 13 league titles Liverpool won from 1963-64 to 1989-90 were largely founded on a strong defence. Rarely did Liverpool leave the back door open, and their trademark "pass and move" game was always played with control in mind.

When losing 5-0 at Manchester City in September, and 4-1 at Tottenham on Sunday, Liverpool's defence utterly collapsed. When forced to defend his record, now struggling by comparison to immediate predecessor Brendan Rodgers, Klopp can stop behaving like the philosopher-entertainer of reputation, and he singled out defender Dejan Lovren for multiple errors that led to punishing defeat at Wembley.

"It was very uncharacteristic for him to single out players, very out of character, "Borussia Dortmund expert Uli Hesse, an editor with 11 Freunde magazine, told ESPN FC. "His rapport with his players is usually very good.

It brought back echoes of when Klopp lost his sense of humour during his final, 2014-15 campaign at Dortmund, where relegation became a concern until a late-season revival. "He became more serious," said Hesse. "The one thing that could get him angry was when people said that opponents had figured him out, decoded him."

The response from Klopp back then was to ask how speed might be decoded, and pace continues to be the basis of his beliefs, though behind an attack force that boasts the jet heels of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool can be dangerously leaden-footed. Lovren's personal crisis is not helped by the lack of an adequate defensive midfielder in front of him, with summer target Naby Keita not arriving from RB Leipzig until next season.

Since Klopp arrived two years ago, Liverpool have spent just £8.9 million on goalkeepers and central defenders, two key positions of weakness in the squad when Klopp succeeded Rodgers. That money bought Ragnar Klavan and Loris Karius, players currently on the bench, while Joel Matip arrived on a free transfer.

At Dortmund, Klopp had a hugely productive relationship with sporting director Michael Zorc that he has not yet replicated at Liverpool with Michael Edwards, Zorc's Anfield counterpart. Failing to sign Southampton's Virgil van Dijk was costly since after that deal collapsed, Liverpool had no further central defenders on their list of targets. In Germany, Klopp trusted Zorc's scouting network to find players he could merge into his system.

Transfers are a bugbear that Klopp and Mourinho might bond on but they share little else in common. The German is the risk-taker who accepts flaws within his team if his doctrine is worked to, while the Portuguese's philosophical thinking strays little beyond playing the percentages.

Such differences define two managers trying to emulate the past success at their respective clubs, they may have to consider borrowing from the other.