There has been something very strange about the media coverage of Manchester United’s pre-season tour of Australia, Singapore and China. One aspect has dominated beyond all else. It’s there in the official photographs and it’s there in the write-ups of interviews. It’s all pervasive. Everywhere you look there is one thing: sweat.
Perhaps it’s all just coincidence. It probably is very hot and, in some areas, humid. But there feels something slightly knowing about all this. For United, sweat is the theme of the summer. “We are here to build them up, that is where we are,” said the manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.