Manchester United’s players who weren’t on international duty at Euro 2016 trained at Carrington today.
Phil Jones, and his hair, was there, as were United new boys Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly, both of whom have been given provisional squad numbers, which may yet become their official squad numbers.
Mkhitaryan, who joined the club from Borussia Dortmund for £26.3m, after being named Bundesliga player of the year last season, had the number 22 on his training kit.
The Armenian midfielder, who wore number 10 at Dortmund last season, was seen sporting John O’Shea’s old number.
Check out the first shots of @HenrikhMkh training with #mufc (NB: Squad number not final). pic.twitter.com/Kd3JcQ6j8D
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 13, 2016
While Eric Bailly, who joined the club from Villarreal for £30m, wore Jonny Evans’ old number six.
New signing @EricBailly24 was also involved, with preparations for 2016/17 under way (NB: Squad number not final). pic.twitter.com/KngSykOqtP
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 13, 2016
One of the reason the squad numbers aren’t finalised yet appears to be that the new United manager is still fine-tuning his squad.
The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that Jose Mourinho wants to get rid of the following players:
Juan Mata, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Marouane Fellaini, Daley Blind, Marcos Rojo, Adnan Januzaj, Donald Love, Paddy McNair, Will Keane, Guillermo Varela and James Weir.
That would free up squad numbers such as number eight, number five and number 11.
When Zlatan Ibrahimovic was unveiled earlier this month, he appeared to be told he would be wearing the number eight jersey, currently worn by Mata.
