Having contested six games and flown over 10,000 miles
in the space of a fortnight, United's players are to be handed some
relaxation time over the coming days.
Following the Reds' Audi Cup Final defeat to hosts
Bayern Munich, Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed that his charges will
not be expected back at Carrington until Monday as a reward for
their exertions.
"We're going to give the players a few days off now, they deserve
that," the manager told MUTV. "It's been a long
haul. It's always tiring going to the Far East. The good thing was
that we've come back through Germany and hopefully that
re-energised them.
"They'll take the benefit of a three day break now, and when
they come back on Monday they'll be ready to go straight into speed
work."
Although Bayern eventually took the trophy after an entertaining
penalty shootout in the Allianz Arena, Sir Alex still declared
himself satisfied with a decent showing from his players.
"It was competitive, I think that was the kind of game we
needed," he said. "In the first half they were the better team, we
weren't competitive enough. But when we started being more
aggressive in our forward play, we should have won the match.
"We had some really good chances and penalty kicks can always go
either way. We were unlucky, We actually took quite good penalties.
I'm happy with the game we got. It was very competitive and it'll
bring us on, I'm sure."