Jose’s ruling out playing Pogba and Lukaku in opener
JOSE Mourinho is adamant Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku will not be considered for United’s Premier League opener against Leicester but insists the majority of his tour squad are not in his plans for the season.
The United manager claims five players at most here in the US will be regulars for the upcoming campaign.
Chris Smalling, Eric Bailly, Antonio Valencia, Luke Shaw, Juan Mata, Ander Herrera, Anthony Martial, Alexis Sanchez and Nemanja Matic are the only senior players on tour, while David de Gea is meeting up this week. But Mourinho has made it clear that only a handful of that group can consider themselves central to his plans.
Asked if the players in the latter stages of the World Cup would be involved against Leicester on August 10, Mourinho responded “No chance.”
He added: “For me it is a very strange pre-season. How many of these players are going to play the majority of the games in the Premier League?
“Not one hand of them. It’s a bit strange for me.
“Pre-season, you try to be motivated and motivate the people around you - but it is not easy.
“I did some pre-season with some players, but to have 10 players away is very strange so the motivation is to try to train the best we can, to give the players minutes, to give young players an opportunity to develop and that’s it.”
Mourinho has effectively confirmed his back four against Leicester will be Valencia, Bailly, Smalling and Shaw, while Sanchez, Martial and Mata are favourites to start up front.
Sanchez’ performance in the 0-0 draw with San Jose offered encouragement to Mourinho, with the Chilean the highlight of an otherwise dour game.
“He was okay,” added Mourinho. “You work individually with I’d say a personal trainer, which is not the case because he’s a member of our staff, we left one guy behind to work with him.
“We knew from the physical point of view he would be okay.
“Match fitness then is a different thing - but we knew he could be good and it was a good physical effort for him, a bit more than an hour, which was good.”