Ander Herrera has said he understands Jose Mourinho’s frustrations with Manchester United’s pre-season, which the midfielder claims is the “strangest” of his time at Old Trafford to date.
Several United first-team players, including Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku, missed the tour of the United States having progressed to the latter stages of this summer’s World Cup with their national teams.
Players are permitted three consecutive weeks of holiday at the end of each season but Mourinho has publicly called on his absentees to cut their breaks short and report back to training in order to help his depleted squad.
Marcus Rashford and Phil Jones returned on Wednesday and Lukaku is set to follow in the coming days, but United are still likely to be without Pogba and other key players for their opening game of the season against Leicester City on 10 August.
Herrera, who was not selected in Spain’s World Cup squad and duly featured in each of United’s tour matches Stateside, sympathises with Mourinho’s concerns.
“I agree with [Mourinho] because it must be difficult for him to work with a group of players that maybe he is going to have 50 per cent of them in the future,” Herrera said.
“You cannot really work tactically because you would think the guys that are working could be leaving or going on loan or they are going to the second team. It’s also difficult for us but we knew that it was going to be like this.”
Herrera believes the start of the new season should have been postponed in order to account for the many players returning late from the World Cup. Of the 92 players involved in the semi-finals of the tournament, 40 played their club football in the Premier League.
“I can understand the manager and, if I put myself in his position, I would be in the same situation,” Herrera said. “You want to fight for the titles but you don’t have the team with you to work for it right now.
“The most intelligent thing would have been to postpone the start of the season by maybe one week. This is my fifth pre-season and it’s the most strange pre-season here so far.”
