Romelu Lukaku, Marcus Rashford and Phil Jones to return to Manchester United pre-season training early, says Jose Mourinho

ROMELU LUKAKU, Marcus Rashford and Phil Jones have all cut short their holidays to rush back to Manchester United pre-season training.

Manager Jose Mourinho confirmed the trio of World Cup stars will be back three days earlier than scheduled in a bid to be ready for the start of the season.

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Manchester United open the Premier League campaign next Friday against Leicester and all three will hope to play a part in that fixture after their rapid return.

Lukaku led Belgium to the semi-finals of the World Cup while Rashford and Jones were part of England's run to the last four.

Mourinho is unhappy at the early start to the Premier League given it was a World Cup summer, and is even more irked at kicking the season off on a Friday night just 26 days after the final in Russia.

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He watched his side beat Real Madrid 2-1 in Miami on Tuesday to end their difficult five-game US tour with a win.

Mourinho has cut a frustrated figure throughout the tour, bemoaning a number of things including the lack of players available so soon after the World Cup.

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But he received a timely boost with the news of Lukaku, Rashford and Jones returning as he looks to hit the ground running against Leicester despite a troubled pre-season.

He said: “My players have been amazing in their effort but we have more effort in front of us.

“We go to Munich in a few days and we start the Premier League in nine days, these are the players that we have plus Victor Lindelof, that started training two days ago, plus Marcus Rashford, Phil Jones and Romelu Lukaku because they gave to the group and to the team three days of their holiday so they're coming back three days early to try and be available for the team."

There was no mention of Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard or Marouane Fellaini, all of whom also reached the latter stages of the World Cup.

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