Ashley Young has stated that the upcoming season at Manchester United will be extremely tough for the squad since that will be no guaranteed first-team regulars under José Mourinho.
The Portuguese boss recently took over from Louis van Gaal and he has been consistently stating that there are no untouchables in the first team. Even though he is starting to see the United squad from close quarters only recently, Mourinho has already deemed several players not being good enough for the first team and this includes World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger. Incredibly, the German has been made to train alone and his future is in doubt.
Young, though, seems to be quite confident about getting playing time. He was meant to play in a number of roles under Van Gaal but this may change under Mourinho. The speech given by the Portuguese since his takeover has given Young enough confidence that he need not worry about first-team opportunities as long as he continues to train well. United are expected to go out all guns blazing with regard to every competition this season.
Hence, Mourinho is expected to rotate his squad quite substantially in the hope of keeping all players fresh.
Like at his previous clubs, Mourinho will be having only 22 players with three goalkeepers in the first team squad. “If they were not in my plans, I would not give them one single minute. I wouldn’t keep them in my squad. We are going to play 60 matches and you cannot do that with 11 players. It’s a squad game – we’re playing quite a few games, as the manager has said, and everyone has got to be ready to take their chance. He’s a winner – you can tell with the history he’s had at every club, where he’s won trophies and won titles,” said Young.