Manchester United’s opening match on Tour 2016, presented by Aon, ended in disappointment after a 4-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund in Shanghai, but the friendly game proved to be another useful exercise for new manager Jose Mourinho as he continues to settle into life at the club.
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“Unfair to make any decision”.
Jones and Memphis Depay, who both looked unconvincing in the first-half, were replaced at the interval by Mourinho, with Marcos Rojo and Marcus Rashford entering the fray. I do the same for players.
“It happens year after year”.
“The team that wins is always the one in advance preparation and it was too obvious”. We want very aggressive players in the midfield, we want to attack and I think we are going to see a very offensive Man Utd but of course we need to be compact we can do that as well. “The striker will be the easy one to finish the puzzle”. That is eight not involved.
“We had no (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic, (Anthony) Martial, (Marouane) Fellaini, (Morgan) Schneiderlin – lots of them aren’t here yet”.
United struggled to keep to with Dortmund, but Herrera believes the German club’s extra time to train played a vital role in their victory. “High quality opposition and the reality is we have six players still in Europe plus Rooney and (Chris Smalling) who are only training”. This was a pre-season game against a team which has already played few games and are further ahead in the progression of their pre-season while United was missing at least four of their expected starters in the team.
Chelsea once made José Mourinho “The Happy One”. “I think he’s more than ready”.
Meanwhile, Tuchel can take plenty of encouragement from Dortmund’s performance and he still has Mario Gotze – who re-signed from Bayern Munich this week – and Andre Schurrle to integrate into the team.
There’s no urgency yet, but United’s new players need to start gelling with their teammates. “He puts his ego aside”, said Tuchel.
The attacking midfielder managed to get his account off the mark when he was on hand to tap in Juan Mata’s squared ball into an empty net. “He can do that”.
United face Borussia Dortmund later today before facing arch-rivals Manchester City on Monday. Dortmund will play Pep Guardiola’s City in Shenzhen on Thursday to round-out the three-team pre-season tournament in China.
This post was syndicated from Punch Newspapers.
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