Jose Mourinho already set for fixture pile-up hell with Manchester United playing EIGHT pre-season matches this summer

MANCHESTER UNITED boss Jose Mourinho might have complained about a fixture pile-up last season.

But his team are set for another gruelling set of games before the Premier League even begins.

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United have planned a set of games around America before facing opponents in Europe.

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If they planned to avoid talks with Real Madrid over David De Gea, they will have to be coy, with the two clubs set to face each other twice in 17 days.

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But Mourinho has traditionally always taken his teams for initial pre-season at the impressive set-up at plush West Hollywood university UCLA.

Mourinho likes to take his teams through tactical sessions before they play games there and sharpen their fitness.

He did so during his two stints at Chelsea and during his time at Real, helping the players relax in sunny climate.

United start their tour against LA Galaxy on August 15 at the StubHub Center, before facing Real Salt Lake in Utah two days later.

They then face cross-town rivals City in Houston, Real Madrid in Santa Clara, before flying to the East Coast to Washington DC to face Barcelona at FedEx Field.

United then fly back to Europe, where they play Valerenga in Norway, Sampdoria in Dublin and finally have the Uefa Super Cup against Real Madrid in Macedonia on August 8.

The Premier League then starts on August 12.

Mourinho regularly complained about fixture pile-up during the end of last season, as United pretty much gave up on making the Premier League's top for and instead focused on winning the Europa League.

Mourinho said last month: "The accumulation of games, I never had that. You know that in all of my career I was never out of European competitions in the group phases.

"And in the last 16 I was out only once. So I reached the semi-finals ten times.

"This situation if you play a final and the game that you should play that day is going to be postponed until the last week, for the last week! This is crazy. I never, ever had a situation like this."