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Louis van Gaal’s work for the new season will be done mostly on the training pitches at Carrington and in Seattle and San Jose.

Having cut United’s warm up matches by two games, including the usual eve of season Old Trafford friendly, the Reds boss has just four matches in America to take a look at his charges in match action.

United’s squad will be settled into East coast base this time next week awaiting the first match of the tour in Seattle a week on Friday against Mexican side Club America.

They will move on to San Jose to play the Earthquakes before the intensity of the tour and quality of the opposition is ramped up with games against Champions League holders Barcelona in Santa Clara on July 25 and Paris St Germain in Chicago on July 28.

They will fly immediately home to finish their preparations at the club’s Carrington training HQ before playing Spurs in the Premier League opener at home on Saturday August 8.

The match time is in contrast to 12 months ago when Van Gaal was presented with a US tour that was already arranged before his arrival as new boss which involved too much flying time and little chance to train. The Dutchman complained about the make up of the trip.

Last summer Phil Jones played 315 minutes on tour, the same as Darren Fletcher and Ashley Young. He took his minutes on the pitch to over 400 when he featured against Valencia in the opening league match against Swansea.

Was it coincidence that the defender then suffered a hamstring problem and shin splints trouble in the first two months of the campaign?

Nine of the most used players on last summer’s American trip were in the starting line up against Swansea which United lost 2-1 at Old Trafford.

This time Van Gaal has revealed the players will be eased into the tour with no more than 45 minutes each against Club America and San Jose.

"In the first two matches I will play all the players at the most for 45 minutes because we have to adapt to that new situation," he said.

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“The Barcelona and PSG games are the third and fourth matches and at that point we will play with certain players for 60 minutes and 30 minutes.”

It means that a player could only have at most 180 minutes, amounting to two matches, in the tank before facing Spurs. Far less than Jones’ four and a half games last year. Only Jesse Lingard and Javier Hernandez from the Swansea starting XI played less than 180 minutes last summer.

The message appears to be from LVG that practise, rather than matches, will make perfect.

In pictures: United versus Real Madrid on 2014 tour