Alex Ferguson has no idea who will be on Manchester United’s summer tour of South Africa and China.
The United boss has confirmed new arrivals Shinji Kagawa and Nick Powell will be making their first Red Devils’ appearances on the trip. However, the remainder of his squad is open to considerable doubt for the simple reason Ferguson does not know who he will be able to pick.
Most of his Euro 2012 stars have been ruled out, with the likely exception of goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard, who did not play as Denmark crashed out in the group stage.
Under normal circumstances, Ferguson would call up some of his younger players, but three of them have been picked for the European Under-19 Champion-ships next month.
And to create even more confusion, there could be more players selected for Olympic duty in addition to Ryan Giggs, who is going to be named as an over-age player in Stuart Pearce’s squad, and David de Gea, who is certain to be selected for Spain.
Add in Nemanja Vidic, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans, Javier Hernandez and Darren Fletcher, who all ended last season under some sort of injury cloud, and it is little wonder Ferguson’s options are so limited.
“It’s obviously very difficult in a year when we have had a Euro tournament and we also have the Olympics,” said Ferguson.
“The final squad hasn’t been decided yet but we will be taking the strongest team we have available.
“We are all looking forward to the pre-season tour. I am delighted that our new signings, Shinji Kagawa and Nick Powell, will be in the travelling squad along with more established players such as Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Ji-Sung Park.”
The presence of Kagawa will attract most interest following the 23-year-old’s summer arrival from Borussia Dortmund.
However, even the tour itself has an air of mystery about it.
Manchester United leave for Durban on July 16 and will also play in Cape Town. They then fly on to Shanghai for what is supposed to be the first match of a two-game trip against Didier Drogba’s new club Shanghai Shenhua.
So far, however, there has still been no word about where, when or against whom the second match will take place.