Boss wants new dad Ant to return to tour of US
JOSE Mourinho believes Anthony Martial should have returned to United’s pre-season tour following the birth of his baby boy.
The Frenchman was granted permission to leave United’s pre-season tour of the US last week in order to attend the birth of his second child.
Martial remained in France over the weekend as his partner recovered from the birth, however Mourinho believes the 22-year-old should be back with his team-mates.
United have been left without a senior central attacking option for their remaining pre-season friendly matches and have been forced to utilise Alexis Sanchez alongside Juan Mata in a central role.
Mourinho’s side once again lacked an attacking edge during their 4-1 defeat to Liverpool and the United manager believes Martial should have shown the same commitment levels of his team-mates to help the team.
“He has the baby and after the baby is born – beautiful baby, full of health, thank God,” Mourinho told MUTV.
“He should be here and he is not here.
“Now we have Real Madrid and after that we have Bayern Munich and that is our start.
“I just hope the boys on deserved holidays, they take care of themselves a little bit and somebody wants to do what Rashford and Jones do, which is to be back a little bit earlier to try and help the team because for the beginning of the season we are going to be in trouble.” JOSE Mourinho believes United will only make one more signing in the transfer window despite his desire to make two additions.
The Reds are interested in Tottenham’s Toby Alderweireld and Leicester’s Harry Maguire as they attempt to reinforce their central defence.
Eric Bailly played in the 4-1 defeat to Liverpool in Ann Arbor with an injury after Chris Smalling had to withdraw from the starting line-up in the warm-up. United are expected to sell Marcos Rojo but Victor Lindelof and Phil Jones are yet to link up with the squad following their World Cup exploits.
Mourinho said he drew up a fiveman shortlist for one position that he submitted to executive vicechairman Ed Woodward ‘a few months ago.’
“I would like to have two more players,” Mourinho said. “I think I am not going to have two, I think it is possible I am going to have one, is possible.
“And that one I gave a list to my club five names a few months ago and I wait to see if it’s possible to have one of these players. If it’s possible it’s possible, if it’s not possible, it’s not possible. If it is possible good, if it is not possible we keep fighting and working and believing in the players that we have.
“This [the defeat to Liverpool] is nothing to do with reinforcements, the reinforcement is Pogba, Fellaini, Lindelof, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Matic, Antonio Valencia, these are reinforcements.
“This is not our team, this is not our squad, we start the game with almost half of the players, they aren’t going to belong to our squad. On August 9, many of them are not going to be here. This is not our squad.
“Reinforcements? You are saying players I’d like to buy, like to add to the squad, that is another thing but this is not my squad, this is not even half of my squad, this is not even 30 per cent of my squad, so don’t look to this that way.
“You can ask with all your players you still want new players, that’s another question but in relation to today we have four or five players that are dead because they care for the club, they care for the team, they try to give everything, even risking themselves because they don’t want to let all the kids by themselves on the pitch against Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid. They don’t want to do that. “As an example, Eric Bailly was not going to play and when we saw Smalling was leaving in the warm-up he decided by himself I don’t want another kid on the pitch, is not fair for Alexis, Mata and Herrera and on the other guys that are there. “So we are trying to play these matches as best we can and we did until the gasoline lasted. When gasoline finished, goodbye. “Liverpool is not just about to have here the majority of their players but is also they rotate players in previous matches. Salah played 45, like we do when we have all the players, we cannot do it. Herrera, 90 minutes, Pereira 90 minutes, so gasoline over. What this game gave me? Nothing, nothing at all.” Jose Mourinho