Manchester United’s pre-season trip to China is ending chaotically, with organisation as bad as the weather meaning Jose Mourinho just wants to get his players home in one piece.
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The final match of its China tour is the first Manchester derby outside the United Kingdom against City today and Mourinho can’t wait for it to be over. “It is nearly the end and we can go home and train in conditions where the players are safe”, he said.
Although the pre-match training sessions have been moved to the nearby Olympic Sports Centre, the game itself is set to go ahead despite initial fears of a cancellation.
I just wanted to say thank you very much for your awesome support here in China.
“My only objective is to take the players home safe and without injury”.
With no game taking place today, United will head back home to Manchester on Monday as planned, while City will jet off to Shenzhen on Tuesday for Thursday’s game against Borussia Dortmund.
Speaking via a video on the official Manchester United Twitter account, Shaw addressed the fans directly over how the United players are feeling. “The most important thing is that the players are not going to be injured but we also know that it’s so important to come here to know the people and to play a good two games against fantastic teams like United and (Borussia) Dortmund”.
“I think Man City have all their players here, but we have six, seven or eight who stayed in Europe”.
“We haven’t seen the pitch, but the information we have is that there is a lot of water in the last few days, a lot of rain, so it’s not in good condition, but we are going to adapt and adjust”.
“Normally when you say lucky you say lucky because you want a good result”.
We may get a glimpse on Monday at some more senior players but I feel that a lot of the youth players will get some time as well.
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Mourinho has never been a fan of commercially-driven pre-season plans, and he will not be too upset at the point that has been made by the external factors coming into play in China.
