United earn second pre-season win

Thursday 1 August 2013

Manchester United saw off a spirited Kitchee 5-2 on Monday in Hong Kong to give David Moyes his second victory as manager of the Premier League champions.

Danny Welbeck, Chris Smalling, Fabio Da Silva and substitute Adnan Januzaj put United 4-0 up after 49 minutes, but they took their foot off the pedal and plucky Kitchee gave the scoreline some respectability with two fine goals on a humid but dry night.

Substitute Jesse Lingard boosted his fast-growing reputation while putting the gloss on a satisfactory evening for United with a lovely curled shot with ten minutes left in front of a sell-out 40,000 crowd at the Hong Kong Stadium and its "killer pitch".

United now head home after chalking up two wins, two losses and one draw on their pre-season tour of Asia and Australia.

"I thought our players played very well on a difficult pitch and made it look like a good pitch," said Moyes, who told a packed media conference. I thought we played well and I thought it was an exciting game for the supporters to see as well," added the former Everton boss, who took over from Alex Ferguson on 1 July.

"We move on. We talk about getting the players fit and ready for the start of the season. It was another hard workout in warm conditions. We head back to the UK now and get ready to go to Sweden to play there as well."

Moyes left star striker Robin van Persie on the bench until the last ten minutes, while also resting Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand. Several members of the squad did not come on the tour of Thailand, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong to give them more time off after the FIFA Confederations Cup.

"I'm taking away a great experience of my first trip with Manchester United and what the football club means around the world, but it was also a chance to get to know the players and try to settle into my new environment and for the players to get to know me as well," said Moyes.

"They've been working with a great man (Ferguson) for a long time... so it is going to take time, but I've enjoyed working with them. They are incredibly professional and I can see why they are champions because of the way they conduct themselves, the way they go about their business. I have been very impressed by them."

United's next friendly is on 6 August in Sweden, where Wayne Rooney is expected to make his return from a three-week injury lay-off. Moyes' men start their Premier League title defence with a tricky trip to Swansea City on 17 August.


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