Erik ten Hag sounding like Jose Mourinho in pre-season is good for Manchester United

Fear and loathing in Los Angeles? Manchester United return to UCLA next week six years on from the tour de farce that signalled the beginning of the end for Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho was in a lugubrious mood but deprived of support. Rui Faria was no longer by his side, Ed Woodward was dodging him, United were devoid of a director of communications and their World Cup participants were on holiday.

To compound that, Woodward was struggling to recruit a centre back and a winger. After United's last friendly against Bayern Munich, a smiling Mourinho told MUTV: "Finally, it's over. Our pre-season is over."

Following the final tour match against Real Madrid, Mourinho held an encore at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, reminding his audience United's under 23s were relegated the previous season and their "quality was not good".

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Some survivors of that team were about to board the United bus for Miami airport. Mourinho threw them under it.

It struck a portentous tone but Mourinho was right. The five-game tour was a largely meaningless excursion and those experiences have doubtless had a bearing on United trimming their Stateside commitments to three games this summer.

For the opening friendly in Trondheim on Monday, MUTV struggled to maintain its North Korea standards. Ronny Johnsen, the United ambassador-cum-pundit, went off-message when he noted how "quiet" it was at the Lerkendal Stadion.

When Erik ten Hag sidled over for a post-match debrief, the presenter informed him the "result is secondary". "The result is not secondary," Ten Hag corrected him.

Ten Hag stressed United were "not good enough", the "performance was