Moyes speaks to the press in Sydney

Manchester United manager David Moyes sat down with the press once again today as his squad touched down in Sydney. Speaking at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Moyes said how happy he was to be back in the country, after his previous visit with Everton a few years back. He also confirmed the arrivals of Spanish goalkeeper David De Gea and last season top scorer Robin van Persie.

United will spend most of the next week in Sydney training ahead of their second match on Saturday [19:30 local time]. The players will then fly on to Japan for the next leg of the tour. Moyes said:

“I’m very pleased to be back. I came here about three years ago.

“You always enjoy the first time but I think you need to come back a second time to really see the sights. So I’m looking forward to having a look a round but I’m also looking forward to the game – it should be a big crowd and a good night.

“Coming here is a big part of our preparations. We’re looking forward to a good week’s training and we’ll use the fine facilities here to get prepared.

“Robin will join us, which will help a lot. Wayne [Rooney] has gone back and it looks like a two-to-three-week injury – nothing too severe.”

United started their pre-season tour yesterday with a 1-0 loss in Thailand, Moyes said:

“Wherever you go, the games are tough. We found that last night in Thailand. This Saturday will be our second game and the Aussie players will be more in full flow than we are.

“And when you play for United, everybody wants to beat you. The players who have been here for a few years understand that’s part of playing for Manchester United.

“But we want to improve in everything we do. Our fitness last night was quite good in testing conditions. A lot of things we did were good. We didn’t quite get the goals to go along with our play so that’s what we’ll be hoping to add to our game on Saturday.”

The manager also gave his reasons as to why he chose to bring a smaller selection of his squad on this leg of the tour. On Wednesday 19 members of his team left for Thailand, with Wayne Rooney returning injured the following day. He does now have David De Gea and Robin van Persie making up the numbers, but injuries seem to be one of the main reasons as to why he’s taken such a small squad. Moyes continued by saying:

“You’re always likely to pick up one or two knocks and niggles,” he said. “But we’ve got players who are starting training back home in the UK – [Ashley] Young, [Chris] Smalling, [Nemanja] Vidic – so we know that if we do need them we can probably call on them.

“My preference was to come with a smaller squad because I wanted to make sure I got as many players playing minutes as possible.

“For example, last night, several players played the full 90 minutes and that will be the case on Saturday: some of them will certainly play a full game.”

United’s next match in on Saturday with kick off at 10:30am {19:30 local time] and will once again be shown live on MUTV. I seems the new manager is willing to give the likes of Adnan Januzaj, Jesse Lingard, Michael Keane and Wilfried Zaha some game time, which is what the supporters will want. Zaha and Januzaj were both brilliant in their different ways during yesterdays [Saturday's] match and I feel both have a lot more to show us during the pre-season tour.