There hasn’t been an awful lot besides rumour to write about since David Moyes officially became the new United boss just over a week ago but the squad is now in Bangkok in readiness for their first pre-season match against Singha All Star XI in the Rajamangala Stadium on Saturday.
The Tour looks like a grueling schedule to me as the Reds will be playing six matches in total in places such as Bangkok, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Sweden but I thought the same about last season’s tour and the players didn’t seem to suffer for it.
The initial squad selected for the tour is:
Goalkeepers: Anders Lindegaard, Ben Amos
Defenders: Rafael, Phil Jones, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Alex Büttner, Fabio, Michael Keane
Midfielders: Michael Carrick, Anderson, Tom Cleverley, Ryan Giggs, Wilfried Zaha, Jesse Lingard, Adnan Januzaj
Strikers: Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck
Apparently, RVP and De Gea will be joining the squad in Sydney before our game against the Australian A-League All Stars on 20th July whilst Kagawa will join up prior to the games in Japan which take place on 23rd and 26th July.
Obviously, we will be hoping to see one or two fresh faces amongst the squad before the tour is over, too.
There are, of course, a couple of interesting “new” faces in there already. Zaha now officially joins us from Crystal Palace and it will be interesting to see how he gets on. I suspect we’ll see more of the player that finished his time at Palace so well and less of the player that played for England a few weeks ago – the English shirt appears to be made of Kryptonite at the moment and even Messi would look like a dud were he put one on.
A few of the Reserve team players are in there – Michael Keane, Lingard and Januzaj and this would appear to be a big season for Keane and Lingard as both are now twenty. I hope they get their chance to shine on the tour.
Adnan Januzaj – One to Watch
Januzaj is a different kettle of fish – just 18 years of age, he won Reserve Player of the Year this year and Fergie has already tipped him to enter that fairly rare group of Reserves who come through and make it into the first team properly. Rumour has it that Barcelona have had their eye on him but the last I heard was that he was going to sign an extension to his contract with us.
I suspect we’ll be seeing Januzaj in at least a couple of the games on the tour and he’s definitely one to watch.
A couple of other “surprise” inclusions are Rooney and Fabio. The situation with Rooney rumbles on and, if rumours are to be believed, he’s going to sign for about five different clubs this summer meaning that he’s going to be a busy boy next season.
Fabio returns from his loan spell at QPR and will be eager to get his Man United career back on track – especially after watching his twin brother Rafael come on leaps and bounds last season to become one of the mainstays in the first team. It looks like Fabio will have his work cut out, though but with Moyes seemingly working on the left-back position, there does now appear to be an opening for a hungry young man to stake a claim.
A few notable exclusions include Nani, Young and Smalling. Officially, all three are still on the comeback trail following injuries sustained last season but the case of Nani would seem to be slightly more complex than that and speculation remains rife that he’ll be on his way out this summer.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with the squad we’re taking out. I would have liked to see us with a new signing or two to take by now but, given the managerial situation, it was always going to be a bit touch and go on that score.
MUTV are screening all the games live and I hope to catch as many of them as possible and will be writing reviews on here.