Tour Schedule Pleases Van Gaal

Louis van Gaal believes changes to Manchester United's summer schedule will help his side get off to the best possible start next season.

The Old Trafford boss felt United suffered by crossing too many time zones during their tour of the United States last summer.

They played matches in Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, Detroit and Miami but will do less travelling this year and spend most of their time on the west coast.

United are set to be based predominantly in the Seattle and San Francisco Bay areas as they train and participate in the International Champions Cup.

Van Gaal told MUTV: “When you see our pre-season last year in the United States of America, we won everything playing against big, top clubs, and then we had to play our first Premier League match against Swansea City and we lost.

“That cannot happen next year. The most important aspect is building up our team with individual players, so they are thinking like a team, but also we need fitness and match rhythm and therefore we have to play matches, but we also have to train.

"The problem was, when we went to America last year, we didn't have so many times to train because we had to fly and travel a lot.

"Now, though, we have improved our America tour because we have two base camps and we are at the other side of America, so we have lower temperatures and can build up our fitness better.

"Last year we had a lot of time differences, you cannot then train your body properly. Therefore, it was not good.

"Now we are always in the same base camps so we have no time difference and we have chosen our hotel nearby the training accommodation. So it is now more easy to train twice a day and that is very important in pre-season."

United will take on Club America in Seattle on July 17, before fixtures against San Jose Earthquakes in Berkeley on July 21 and then Barcelona in Santa Clara four days later.

They will then play Paris Saint-Germain in Chicago on July 29 as they head home.

Credit: Skysports.com