Nemanja Matic reveals why Manchester United will struggle to win titles, makes refernce to Chelsea’s past exploits

Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has identified reasons the Red Devils will struggle to win trophies this season.

The Bosnian, who won the league with Chelsea in 2015 and 2017, believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team needs more experience before they can seriously challenge for the title.

Matic is in contention to be United’s captain this term and appeared in all their pre-season wins, against Perth Glory, Leeds, Inter Milan and Tottenham.

‘Quality and experience brings you the title. In this squad we have quality and no experience,’ says the 30-year-old as cited by the Daily Mail.

‘We have five or six top players but they are still young like Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial. They have shown their quality on the pitch but are too young to lead the team of course.

‘Mason Greenwood – great potential. United have a project and know what they want with players of the future. But you need to give them time because, at 17, you cannot play the same like you are 26 or 27.

‘Football always wants results but the fans need to be patient so they can improve. In the future I am sure these players will take United back to where they belong.’

The successful Chelsea teams Matic played in were packed with knowhow. In 2015, John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic were ever-presents in the side under then manager Jose Mourinho and the club still had Didier Drogba and Petr Cech in the dressing room. ‘I was one of the young ones,’ said Matic.

Two years later, Antonio Conte relied on Gary Cahill, David Luiz and Pedro to get Chelsea over the line.

‘We had young talented players like Eden Hazard but you need a mix of experience with that talent,’ said Matic, who is likely to be the oldest member of Solskjaer’s otherwise-youthful first XI this season.

Photo Credit: Twitter

REVEALED: Why Gareth Bale’s €1m-per-week China move was called off

There are reports that Gareth Bale’s proposed transfer to Jiangsu Suning has been called off.

Bale looked to be headed for Jiangsu and possibly Inter, the forward having reportedly agreed a €1m wage with the Chinese club.

However, BBC Sport and Sky Sports are now claiming the deal is no more and that the 30-year-old will stay at Madrid this summer.

The Telegraph, in particular, explains the move was vetoed by Los Blancos’ board and he will therefore not join Jiangsu before Wednesday’s deadline.

The report from David Ornstein adds that Madrid have called off the proposed move – following on from a season-ending injury to Marco Asensio.

Asensio is expected to miss the rest of the season with a serious knee injury.

Bale celebrated his 30th birthday last week and is said not to be part of Zinedine Zidane’s plans at the Bernabeu, while the Madrid fans have turned on him.

It now remains to be seen whether the Welshman can patch things up with Coach Zinedine Zidane after he publicly discarded the player.

In turn, according to Football Italia, Madrid may let Napoli target James Rodriguez move on, although there is still no suggestion that they will accept anything other than a permanent sale.

Maurizio Sarri warns Cristiano Ronaldo as star sends “miss you” message to his family

Cristiano Ronaldo posted an emotional snap to Instagram showing how he is missing his girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez and his four children.

The 34-year-old Portuguese is currently on a tour of Asia with Juventus.

But thoughts of the family are never far away if his latest social media posting is anything to go by, the Sun report.

He uploaded a photo of Georgina with his four children, Cristiano Jr, twins Eva and Mateo and Alana Martin.

He simply captioned it “missing you” followed by five heart emojis and tagged in his stunning partner.

Ronaldo is set for another important season with Juve, with new boss Maurizio Sarri making him the first name on the team-sheet.

But Gazetta reports that he must “start the season in perfect shape”, from when Sarri will give him “total freedom of movement” in the starting XI.

Essentially it will be a team of ten with Ronaldo given the license to do his own thing on the pitch.

And Sarri has previous experience of having an outstanding maverick of a footballer at his disposal.

At Chelsea he managed Belgian magician Eden Hazard who could turn a game on a sixpence – just like CR7.

Ronaldo failed to appear in Juventus’ final friendly on the Asian tour against a Korean All-stars XI as he is suffering with a muscle injury.

This left fans who attended the game furious, many of whom had bought Ronaldo face-masks and other memorabilia to welcome their hero.