United will play their fourth game of their pre-season tour against bitter Merseyside rivals Liverpool on Saturday night in Michigan. The match will be played at the Michigan Stadium, nicknamed “The Big House” and is the football stadium of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It also has a capacity of over 100,000 but I don’t think it will be full tomorrow, even for this great historic fixture.
United may have had a dramatic penalty shootout victory over AC Milan in our International Champions Cup 2018 opener, but overall it’s three straight draws in ninety minutes so far for our lads. Still it’s pre-season, victories do not matter at all, it’s about getting the lads match ready for the season ahead and of course, Leicester City in two weeks. #CotRoM
July 28th – Liverpool, Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor at 10pm UK time
United Team: Grant (J.Pereira 46),
Darmian, Fosu-Mensah, Bailly, Tuanzebe (Williams 81),
Mitchell (Chong 71), McTominay, Herrera (Bohui 81), A. Pereira,
Mata (Fred 71), Alexis (Gomes 81).
Subs not used: Garner, Hamilton, Greenwood.
In the end, there was over 100,000 fans were inside The BIG House in Michigan to watch us play Liverpool in our latest International Champions Cup game last night. More of the younger and inexperienced lads got game time but unfortunately they were also taught a lesson by our hated rivals. No one wants to lose to Liverpool, but some people really need to get a grip, this is pre-season, the results do not matter.
I’ve never bragged about pre-season friendly results and never will, it means nothing, but by the sound of it a lot United fans seem to have gone into meltdown on social media. Again, who cares though. I’m sure, in fact I’m 100% positive, that when I catch up with the lads at Old Trafford for the Leicester game, as well as away at Brighton in a few weeks, no one would have cared about last night.
Didn’t we beat Man City in Houston, Texas in pre-season last year? Well, that went well for us. It certainly didn’t affect their season. Speaking of which, back in 2003 I actually went on our pre-season tour to America. I’m sure It was the first time they’d been to the States in years, so I couldn’t resist, so went along as I’d never been to the US. What a pre-season it was, met a load of lads I’m still on contact with and had a brilliant time seeing the sights of Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and of course New York. Happy memories!
I also remember Ruud van Nistelrooy scoring in every single one of the four games we played against Celtic, Club America, Juventus and Barcelona. We won all of the games too, scoring fourteen and conceding just three goals. It was great to watch but it still meant nothing, yes having a good pre-season is good for morale I suppose but a bad pre-season is good to identify any issues. That’s the whole point of pre-season for me.
Our 2003 pre-season tour was outstanding and couldn’t have gone any better, our hopes were, a young Cristiano Ronaldo then joined us, but guess what? We didn’t win the Premier League for three seasons after that, which just goes to show how important results are in these friendlies.
Remaining Fixtures:
August 1st – Real Madrid, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami at 1am UK time
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