For Manchester United, their nightmarish preseason continues tomorrow night with their final International Champions Cup clash, against Real Madrid in Miami. This will be United’s final friendly in the United States.
There is certainly no shortage of topics to discuss today, so let’s take a spin through the latest news and notes items making the rounds on the internet right now.
As we said, United’s preseason in the USA has been a total nightmare thus far. Although the results don’t matter that much, it is still disheartening to see only one victory thus far, and that was on penalty kicks.
Midfielder Ander Herrera says we shouldn’t pay any attention to the final scores however. He says the results in the ICC, and against the two Major League Soccer sides that they have have faced is irrelevant. The Spaniard says it’s all about the Premier League season opener against Leicester City on August 10.
“The least important thing is the result right now,” Herrera told the club’s official website. “We are playing with the same players every game. It looks like a Christmas period to be honest rather than a pre-season, but it is what it is.”
“We have to be all together, to try to have minutes in our legs, to not think too much about the results and let’s try to keep improving because the most important thing is Leicester.”
“Of course it is never nice to lose. But pre-season is pre-season.”
It isn’t the results that have alarmed United fans this preseason- it’s the injuries, summer transfer window inactivity and the fact that so many key players aren’t able to get training time/work in with their teammates this summer.
United manager Jose Mourinho has of course done a ton of complaining this summer, about pretty much everything under the sun. He’s also ripped the ICC, criticizing its inability to showcase individual stars due to this being a World Cup year. Mourinho even went on to say that he would not have paid to see his team in action.
(With the cheapest non-scalper tickets available at $50, and all scalpers’ bottom prices in the $90s. No arguments there!)
Mourinho’s raging against the machine may lead to tweaks in the format next season.
“I understand his point,” Charlie Stillitano, executive chairman of International Champions Cup organizers Relevent Sports, told the event broadcast rights holders.
“He wants even his players who have personal commitments to be here. And I read into that he wants the best for the fans and the best for us and of course the best for him. He wants his full team. There are challenges in a World Cup year. It gets later and later, the season seem to get earlier and earlier and it’s really a challenge for everyone.”
“I think he was just voicing that frustration.”
“We are looking at changing the format next year but it’s a bit cyclical anyway. We might tweak the format, but it’s not a World Cup year, everyone is excited to come and I don’t think we will have anything near the same problem.”
-Finally, Mourinho revealed that two of his players on post World Cup holiday have come back to the team, cutting their vacations short. Mourinho hopes other players who are still away will follow the lead of England duo Phil Jones and Marcus Rashford.
“I hope that the boys on deserved holidays take care of themselves a bit and that somebody wants to do what Rashford and Phil Jones decided to do, which is to be back a bit earlier to try to help the team because for the beginning of the season we are going to be in trouble,” Mourinho said.
Numerous players, including Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba, Marouane Fellaini and Jesse Lingard, remain away from the club.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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