José Mourinho has revealed that Eric Bailly and Phil Jones will start in central defence for Manchester United’s friendly against Borussia Dortmund on Friday.
New signing Bailly started in the centre of defence alongside Daley Blind when the Reds defeated Wigan in their first pre-season friendly last Saturday, but Mourinho is keen to trial different defensive combinations on their tour of China.
The United manager outlined his plans in an interview with MUTV:
In the other match [against Wigan] I started the match with Bailly and Blind as central defenders. Tomorrow I shall start with Bailly and Jones, to see different things and we will try for the best result but that is not the most important thing.
Mourinho is expecting a tough test for his side from Thomas Tuchel’s men in Shanghai, who kick-started their pre-season preparations early and have already played four friendlies:
They are a team that has played four matches and a team that has four matches in their legs. They started training a couple of weeks before us and they didn’t have so many players like we did in the Copa America and the Euros.
So basically they only have two or three players out, they have the whole team working together for about a month and I repeat they have played four matches. So I expect to see two teams in different moments of their preparation, but it is good for us because it is more of a challenge.
Mourinho also reiterated that pre-season was not necessarily about winning, but building up the conditioning and match fitness of his players, as well as testing out different tactics ahead of the new Premier League season:
We are not here in pre-season playing for points so if you don’t win then you don’t win. You try to have conditioning in the team and to know the players better. For example I want to see the different formations and different players in different positions with different combinations.
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