Depleted Manchester United begin pre-season training with leg workout after Alexis Sanchez fails to make flight to Los Angeles
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MANCHESTER UNITED started their pre-season training with a depleted squad as Jose Mourinho put his stars to work.
The side made the 5,200-mile trip to California after the World Cup final on Sunday.
And they have been getting into the swing of things at the plush University of California, Los Angeles campus under the West Coast sunshine.
Luke Shaw, Andreas Pereira, Antonio Valencia, Anthony Martial and Chris Smalling all performed basic warm-up drills to shake out the long flight.
Mourinho has enjoyed taking his teams out to UCLA for their training in the past, with the American university boasting world class sporting facilities and an ideal climate – as well as being a popular workout spot for Hollywood celebrities.
But United are getting down to serious business, starting on Friday with friendlies against Club America, San Jose Earthquakes, AC Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid planned.
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But Mourinho faced having to fly out to sunny California without one of his best players, after Alexis Sanchez was embarrassingly denied a visa to enter the United States.
Sanchez, 29, was found guilty of defrauding the Spanish government in February during his time at Barcelona.
Meanwhile Paul Pogba is still partying in Paris after France's World Cup victory.
And United's other World Cup stars such as Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Romelu Lukaku, Marouane Fellaini, Victor Lindelof and David De Gea have all been granted three weeks off by Mourinho after their exploits in Russia.
New signings Diogo Dalot and Lee Grant have both flown out to America, while new boy Fred is having some time off after spending most of his time sitting on the bench in Russia.
Meanwhile Daley Blind did not travel and is set to re-join Ajax in an £18.1million deal.
Former Stoke keeper Grant, 35, told MUTV: "[I’m] excited, obviously, and then anxious to get everything over the line and eager to get started. That’s been the case throughout the off-season – I was really eager to get here and get started.
"It’s been a fantastic journey to get me here and I’m certainly looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to a nice pre-season, we’ve got our first training session at UCLA so it should be fun.”
Meanwhile Grant said former United midfielder Darren Fletcher sat him down for a chat about the makeup of the club.
Grant added: "Fletch has been great.
"I managed to grab some lunch with him a week or so before I joined up with the boys and he gave me a little rundown on the club, who to avoid speaking to and who to cosy up to!
"In all seriousness he’s been great, he told me what a fantastic football club it is and he was certain I was going to enjoy my time here."
