Manchester United kicked off their pre-season campaign in China with a disappointing result against Borussia Dortmund.The disparity in match fitness between the two teams was clear from the off as Dortmund had played four games prior to this whereas United had only played one.
Mourinho’s squad had some noticeable changes, with Phil Jones returning to action in centre-back as Daley Blind moved back into central midfield. Memphis was also tasked with leading the attack as Mkhitaryan started on the left, with Lingard on the right and Mata operating in his preferred ‘number 10’ role.
The match started quietly with Memphis testing the Dortmund defence a few times with runs in behind, but it was Dortmund who got the scoring started in the 19th minute when an Aubameyang free-kick was poorly parried by Johnstone and eventually converted by Gonzalo Castro. Dortmund doubled their lead when Valencia handled the ball in the box which led to Aubameyang himself getting on the scoresheet with a cooly converted penalty, which put United two goals down at the break.
The second half saw Rashford, Rojo, Romero and Young coming on in place of Lingard, Johnstone, Jones and Memphis, but it didn’t phase Dortmund as the talented teenager Ousmane Dembélé danced around the United defence to make it 3-0. United managed to get a goal back through Mkhitaryan who tapped in Mata’s square pass to score his first goal in a United shirt, but it wasn’t enough as United failed to create enough and Castro scored stunning strike late in the game to truly wrap up proceedings and make it 4-1.
United fans shouldn’t be too disheartened as the heat, humidity and lack of matches clearly played an impact, but some performances may cause Mourinho to rethink his strategy and selection in upcoming games. Here are our player ratings:
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