Pre-season training has barely started, but already players must be playing for their places in their teams next season.
Carrington must be a lonely place just now, with the majority of the squad ambling back either from international duty or a sandy beach, but Jose Mourinho will surely still have a good idea of what sort of a team he wants to build this summer.
Manchester United have already been busy in the transfer market this summer, signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Eric Bailly as Jose Mourinho looks to undo three years of stagnation since the end of the Ferguson era, and build upon an FA Cup victory last season.
With Louis van Gaal gone, United can start to play a much more pragmatic style under Mourinho, but after two seasons of Van Gaal, United’s players will surely be technically and mentally better players. All it needs now is that pragmatic, fighting edge that Jose Mourinho will give them.
Here’s how they could line up, and it’s frightening – there may even be no room for the likes of Ander Herrera and Juan Mata, but even Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney will have to fight for their places.
Welcome to a new era of super squads where every member will play their part through rotation and being left out for tactical reasons – whoever is picked, the Manchester United lineup for next season will quite simply be scary…
David de Gea
This time last year, David de Gea seemed a certainty to leave the club, and was only a technical glitch from doing so on deadline day.
This season, things have changed so much at Old Trafford that United will no longer look to be in danger of losing their best player. In fact, their best player for the last few seasons may well be losing his mantle as the best player! That’s a welcome change for United, whose stand-out stars are usually attackers, not goalkeepers.
Marquinhos
Right back is a problem position for United just at the moment. Matteo Darmian is quite clearly a good player, but it has been reported that he is a target for clubs from abroad – and also that Jose Mourinho might be willing, if not eager, to sell.
Reported Manchester United target, PSG’s Marquinhos, could be the replacement. The young Brazilian, is certainly a future centre back and not a full back, but we have seen in the past that Jose Mourinho isn’t averse to using fairly mobile centre backs at full back – with cover behind them, the wingers can come inside to press centrally.
Marquinhos is a wonderful young talent who can mature into a centre back later in his career, but this season he would form part of a solid defence in Mourinho’s crucial first season.
Eric Bailly
As Jose Mourinho’s first signing at the club, Eric Bailly will have a lot to live up to. He’s a classy centre back who isn’t averse to a big tackle, but someone who can pass the ball as well as being solid in the centre of defence will be an asset to Mourinho, especially alongside Chris Smalling, who can play the ‘destroyer’ role with a more composed Bailly alongside him.
United’s defence is going to be a crucial part of their transition from a risk-averse Van Gaal team to a rabid Mourinho team this season. If they can get that right, they’ll have the players up front to do serious damage.
Chris Smalling
On the back of a solid season, Chris Smalling has already established himself as Manchester United’s first choice central defender. He flourished last season playing alongside Daley Blind, the composed, ball playing yin to Smalling’s yang.
He’s hardly the beastliest of centre backs, but he relishes playing the more imposing role, and having a player like Bailly alongside him will give him a partner with similar qualities to Blind, but with a bit more bite.
Luke Shaw
Luke Shaw had a hideously unlucky first season at Manchester United. He was looking like a very shrewd signing, a young, very promising, very gifted full back who would grow into a club legend. And it’s easy to forget that he still is all of those things.
Shaw is a marauding wing back who will give Mourinho an outlet going forward as well as being solid defensively, and if there is a more defensively minded full back on the other side of the defence, Shaw will be given more licence to get forward as Mourinho will have his bases covered. Shaw could flourish.
Blaise Matuidi
Given that he’s spent his career in Ligue 1, it’s no surprise that Blaise Matuidi is a little bit underrated. The French league is seen as a feeder league for the other, bigger European leagues. Fair enough. But Matuidi has sprung to European attention with the success of PSG, and the fact that they are now being taken so seriously on the international stage.
If Manchester United want a box to box player who can pop up with help to the attack as well as putting in a defensive shift, Blaise Matuidi would be a sensational signing.
Paul Pogba
The prodigal son. Paul Pogba could well sign for Manchester United this summer, and probably for a huge fee. If that happens, he’ll have shown Manchester United exactly what they were missing by letting him go, but the added bonus for Mourinho would be that Pogba would certainly have a point to prove.
He isn’t the finished article just yet, but you do get the feeling that with the right manager, Pogba would turn into a genuine Ballon d’Or contender at some point. Just like Eden Hazard shined under Mourinho in the title-winning season, Paul Pogba could turn into a similar sort of talisman for United over the next few seasons if Mourinho can get the best out of him.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Perhaps the most exciting signing for Manchester United so far, at least in the long term. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the arrival of a king, but Mkhitaryan will be a creative spark that Manchester United haven’t really had for a while. No matter what Ibra brings to United, he’ll need a provider. And with 15 assists last season at Dortmund, Mkhitaryan will be the man tasked primarily with feeding Zlatan.
If Mourinho is looking to play with an ageing frontline of Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney, Mkhitaryan will have to provide the energy, but he has plenty of that – and with the likes of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford waiting in the wings, United should have no problems at all.
Wayne Rooney
How do you leave out Wayne Rooney?
If the Manchester United captain isn’t playing well, there will be a huge clamour to leave him out, the existence of the Marcus Rashfords of this world will take care of that. United simply have so much in reserve under Mourinho that it will be hard for anyone to underperform and keep their place.
But it is true that United are in a great shape in an attacking sense for next season, and if Wayne Rooney gets licence to be himself – rather than the frustrating automaton that Louis van Gaal wanted him to be – then we could see an Indian Summer for Rooney.
At least give him the chance to be a success next season, he deserves that chance, and he may well take it.
Memphis Depay
So, no Anthony Martial? I know what you’re thinking: he knows nothing. But hear me out.
The very first thing to note is that Martial is that he’s a supremely talented 20 year-old. But in the days of Sir Alex Ferguson, whilst 20 year-olds were given their chance, they weren’t the part of the team the manager relied upon. They were the kids who were given a start every three or four games, and brought off the bench for half an hour in the others.
This should be the role given to Martial next season – he’ll flourish when he’s given the chance, but the pressure will be off his shoulders, and he won’t burn out.
The second thing to note is the quality of Memphis Depay. He had a bad season last year – but then not many players didn’t in a Manchester United shirt.
If Depay gets going this season under a new manager who puts a bit of faith in him, we could see the player we all thought Manchester United were getting. And if that happens he’ll be the livewire creator to mirror Mkhitaryan on the other flank.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
After the protracted transfer stories and the bombastic announcement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a Manchester United player, who else could start up front in Jose Mourinho’s first season as the Manchester United boss?
Ibrahimovic is a world class star who boosts United’s reputation after a few stagnant seasons, so he makes sense from a box office point of view – but if that’s your point of view then you’re forgetting that he is a supremely talented footballer who seems to win the league title on a yearly basis. Is that an omen for United?
Probably, if Mourinho can get the best out of this insanely talented XI – but it’s almost the players who are left out who stand out even more. In the end, whoever Mourinho picks will lead to a stellar squad.