Manchester United had a great start to their pre-season after they registered a 2-0 victory against Wigan Athletic last night. Luke Shaw made a full recovery and started yesterday’s game, completing one full half.
The left-back suffered a horrific injury at the start of last season that kept him out fo so long so it was good to see the United and England full-back in action once again. It also gives Mourinho another option in defense.
The Portuguese talked about the left back and his performance in the match
“The worst thing in football is long-term injuries. I was expecting him to start the pre-season with some limitations - a little bit of weight and less sharpness. But the physical point of view is good and more than that, the mental point of view is good. The kid was great in the summer. He worked every day at the training ground to try to be ready for this.”4
United new boys Eric Bailly and Henrikh Mkhitaryan also made their United debuts as the fans got a glimpse of their capabilities. Bailly started ar Right Centre back and Bling partnered him in defence.
Jose had encouraging words for his new signings as well. Speaking to MUTV he said, “For Eric this is the first time he will wear a shirt like the Manchester United shirt.”
"He can’t speak English and can only communicate with the ones who are French speakers or Spanish so for him it’ll be step by step and that’s why I will give him more than 45 minutes. I want to give him 65 or 70 minutes because he needs to play more than others. He needs to feel it and start communicating.”
Mkhitaryan had a few neat touches displayed wonderful passing ability in his first game as a red devil, which will certainly excite fans.
“Micki is a player with experience and he’s comfortable because he speaks fluent English. I think it will be a nice 45 minutes for him. Next week we have Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City and we will go again with the same players, We are going to face good teams with almost every player ready for these matches.”
Most importantly Mourinho was very impressed with United youngsters as well. “You can play 90 minutes or one minute and sometimes one minute is enough. With Axel [Tuanzebe] – 10 minutes is enough! [Laughs] The potential is there, you could see it immediately.
“You know him better than me of course as you’ve known for a few years and I’ve known him for a couple of weeks, but if anyone sees him for the first time then 10 minutes is enough to see the potential. Andreas [Pereira] has lots of talent.”
“He has incredible vision and an incredible technique. That’s just talking about two players but the reality is the kids, without pressure and in a calm environment and not in the fire but in a cool situation for them, were very good. And it was very good for me to see what they can do”
