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Manchester United are returning to the United States this summer to play three friendlies and I will be embarking on my seventh pre-season tour covering the most fascinating club in world sport.

From Tuesday, a daily tour diary will be sent out via my Substack newsletter Inside Old Trafford charting what is going on behind the scenes as United gear up for another critical campaign.

I will be present for the open training sessions at UCLA, the three pre-match press conferences, mixed zones from Los Angeles to South Carolina, via San Diego, and posing questions in the traditional pre-season sit-down with the manager.

Having spent two-and-half candid hours in Erik ten Hag’s company during his first tour in Melbourne in 2022 and later that year at the winter training camp in Cadiz, I can confirm the United manager is even better value and wholly authentic minus the cameras.

One of the privileges of that access is what goes on in the background, the chance exchanges and the side to the players that we see but few others do. There will be plenty of that in my diary from the West Coast to America’s south east.

There are scheduled interviews with United players and we will have special editions and versions from those features and stories filed from LA which will appear in the Substack newsletter. Video of the players training, mixed zone activity, matchday incidents and more will also be included in the diary entries

United have entertained a range of famous faces at UCLA before - Julia Roberts, Gary Oldman, actors from Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, the singer from Snow Patrol and a wrestler. Some of those familiar faces are expected to rock up during United’s Stateside stay again, so I will keep you posted on behind