I’ve been reading about the Asia tour on the Manutd website. It sounds like the squad are working well together, and the new signings are playing well.

Queiroz says that the work the squad are doing in the heat and humidity is good for them, it will help them when they come back to playing back in England - I don’t see how, surely playing in heat and humidity will help their bodies get used to playing in heat and humidity, something we don’t really have a lot of over in England right now. Perhaps if they were training in tropical downpours and on pitches submerged to the tops of the goalposts in floodwater would they be preparing for the return back to England…

How much of these tours over to Asia is all about “getting the players fit” I wonder? I suspect its more about “getting the coffers fit”, and ensuring that lots of Ronaldo and Rooney shirts are sold in Japan and Korea. Not that I’m bothered, I’m a capitalist, so can’t complain when an organisation wants to cash in on their assets.

I read that Paul Scholes is now injured thanks to the Asia tour, that’s a shame as we could really use him in the first few weeks of the season to ensure we get a good start on Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal (should they turn up). It means we will have to rely on an untried midfield partnership of Hargreaves and Carrick, not something I am too worried about, however as we know they are both quality players. My only concern is that Carrick effectively did Hargreaves job last season, so could he be a bit rusty when forced to play the creative midfield role, a la Scholes? We will have to wait and see how August pans out…