MANCHESTER UNITED are heading home after their taxing pre-season trip to China came to a shambolic end.
Bureaucracy, disorganisation and bad luck meant their money-spinning International Champions Cup involvement was far more of a hindrance than help to recently-appointed manager Jose Mourinho.
The United boss was clear that the trip to China was a necessary evil, but the cancellation of Monday's eagerly-anticipated friendly against Manchester City raised fresh doubts over the wisdom of such pre-season tours to the Far East.
A two-hour delay at passport control upon landing in Shanghai on Wednesday got United off to a frustrating start, throwing their tight schedule, given their sponsor commitments, off kilter.
The heat and humidity made it more difficult for Mourinho to mould his new side in training and United were soundly beaten 4-1 at a half-empty Shanghai Stadium by a Borussia Dortmund side admittedly far more advanced in pre-season.
That section of the trip proved relatively straightforward compared to the second leg, though, with even the journey to Beijing proving troublesome.
One of United's two chartered planes was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Tianjin due to the bad weather, leading Memphis Depay to post a video saying they were "lost somewhere" in China.
Eating dinner at 1am in the morning was hardly ideal for the players, who at the last minute saw training switch from the Bird's Nest to the nearby Olympic Sports Centre on Sunday.
A clearly bemused Mourinho had to do his pre-match media activity outside as the tiny, sweltering press conference room was deemed unsuitable, with security staff having to hold back many autograph-hunting journalists before and afterwards.
Training away from the Bird's Nest was intended to protect the pitch, which – despite an International Champions Cup source insisting it would be "fine" – Mourinho said was so bad that getting his players home in one piece was the main concern.
The United boss will be relieved to do just that when they board their plane home on Monday evening as the torrential rain over the last week, as well an issue regarding fungus, left the pitch in such a state that the friendly with City was cancelled on safety grounds
Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and managing director Richard Arnold were among the United contingent that on Monday met with a group of City representatives, such as sporting director Txiki Begiristain and Omar Berrada, the chief operations officer.
That meeting with the organisers, who received advice from the Sports Turf Research Institute, led to the collective decision to call off the match.
"We know our fans in China will, like the players and staff, be saddened by the cancellation of the match but I am sure they appreciate that the player safety has to be the top priority," Woodward said in a statement.
"I am sure we will return to the Bird's Nest in the future to give them the chance to see the team in action."
Whether Mourinho will be open to that after the farcical end to the tour is another matter entirely.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here