BEIJING: Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho revealed Sunday he was ready to go home as the club's pre-season tour of China threatened to descend into farce.
The final match of their China tour is first Manchester derby outside the UK against City on Monday and Mourinho can't wait for it to be over.
"It is almost the end and we can go home and train in conditions where the players are safe," said Mourinho after a wild couple of days for his squad after they lost 4-1 to Borussia Dortmund in Shanghai on Friday.
Half of Mourinho's players were caught on a plane Saturday which had to make a forced landing between Shanghai and Beijing because of a violent storm in the capital.
Striker Memphis Depay tweeted a video of himself outside the plane in Tianjin, saying they were "lost in China".
"We were supposed to fly in two different planes," Mourinho confirmed to reporters.
"The second group was unlucky as they had a storm and had to land somewhere else for a couple of hours.
"They then arrived at the hotel for dinner at 1:00 am. The players are good and arrived with a smile."
Doubts over the state of the Bird's Nest Stadium turf for the friendly against City after days of heavy rain meant a hasty switch of training venues Sunday to the nearby Olympic Sports Centre to protect the match pitch.
And with more storms forecast for Sunday night and Monday, the match itself could be in the balance.
"It has been really bad," said International Champions Cup China spokesman Ben Xiaozheng. "We are hopeful the game will go ahead."
Meanwhile the smaller venue struggled to cope with the invasion of hundreds of reporters, photographers and TV crews to cover United's every move.
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