United looking ready for a title assault?
t’s now 3 games into the pre-season tour with Real Madrid coming up tonight in Santa Clara and then Barca in Washington DC.
The 2 games against the MSL teams were real training sessions and were good workouts without serious opposition. The City game was not your typical pre-season fixture, and United looked sharp and played some very nice one touch football. Lukaku and Rashford looked great up front, and other than Smalling at the back, United looked pretty solid. I don’t quite understand Jose’s obsession with Lingard – yes he works hard, but 99 times out of 100 when he is given a chance in front of goal, he fluffs his lines. Whilst I’m not suggesting he should be offloaded, surely he’s just a squad player.
I think United have played some attractive football and avoided the long ball, and even Fellaini made a forward pass against City. My personal biggest hope this season is that Jose genuinely plays the United way and not the old Jose way – I really don’t want to see us going to Anfield or Chelsea or Spurs or City set up to just kill the game, that’s not Manchester United and I doubt the fans will stand for that for too much longer from Jose. We know his ego is huge and he just hates to be beaten by a Klopp or a Pep, but look at last season – if we had won all those stupid home draws and lost at Liverpool and City, we would have ended up 3rd ahead of both Liverpool and City, so he needs to get these priorities right.
United have a great squad to play attractive attacking football – hopefully Mr Ed can bring in 2-3 more before the end of next month to really strengthen our team for the grueling season ahead. If I was in charge I would probably look to sell Smalling and Young, as in today’s crazy market, they could probably fetch £40m between them.
So now onto Santa Clara and the mighty Real Madrid… United left LA yesterday, and by all accounts enjoyed every minute here, with a likely return in 2018, hopefully as CHAMPIONS.
