Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho struck a worrying tone when facing the press for the first time during the club’s pre-season tour of the United States. Despite the captures of Lee Grant, Fred and Diogo Dalot, the former Chelsea boss seemed less-than confident at the prospect of bringing in new signings, and with a large amount of players currently missing from the first team squad due to their exertions in the World Cup, coupled with Alexis Sanchez’s ongoing visa issues, the Portuguese was alarmingly despondent when facing the media.
I’ve no idea.” said Mourinho when asked about new signings in his first press conference of the new season, in quotes carried by The Mirror. “I’m not going to lie to you, I’m not going to say somebody is coming or nobody is coming. The pre-season is very bad.
“The positive thing of the pre-season is only for the young boys that have fantastic opportunity to train with us, to train what is to be a Manchester United first-team player, the chance to know all the details related to the life of a Manchester United first-team player, and to have the chance to play against fantastic players. Liverpool, Milan, Real Madrid, to know other cultures, to play against an MLS team, to play against a Mexican team.
“Next week will come De Gea, Matic and Fred, which is good especially for Fred, a new player to be with us. But everything is really bad and then we go to the UK and have to play Premier League, the broadcasters were not nice to us with the Friday match [against Leicester] which complicates more things.”
Mourinho’s tone was hardly encouraging; you’d hope that the manager would be able to take his current obstacles in his stride, but there’s an element of defeatism from the manager, which is hardly ideal when United have the task of catching a strong Manchester City side in the Premier League this season.
