Erik ten Hag has plans in place for Manchester United’s last two pre-season fixtures against Atletico Madrid and Rayo Vallecano.
It has been a positive pre-season tour to date, with three wins from four matches, but Ten Hag will be looking forward to getting his first Premier League campaign underway.
Ten Hag needs to prepare strategically for the next two games as they are both in the space of two days across this weekend. It will be his last chance to see his players in action before they welcome Brighton to Old Trafford the following week.
According to The Athletic, Ten Hag plans to field his strongest team is Oslo on Saturday, where United will face Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid.
That means we could see a lot of fringe players and academy prospects in the game against Rayo Vallecano the day after.
The meeting with Rayo Vallecano may be Ten Hag’s first game at Old Trafford, but it makes more sense to test our best players against Atleti, who play in the Champions League every year.
It will still be a fun day out and we’ll get to welcome Bebe and Radamel Falcao back to Manchester.
Has anyone questioned why they scheduled two games over the space of two days? It seems crazy.
Ten Hag wants to get most of his players to have 90 minutes in their legs before the season start. That’s the reason he requested back-to-back preseason matches this weekend.