Moyes Names 19-Man Squad For Asia Tour: Vidic Exclusion Raises Questions Over Future

New Manchester United manager David Moyes has named his 19-man squad which will fly out to Bangkok, Thailand, today for the first leg of the clubs pre-season tour of the Far East and Australia, but the exclusion of Nemanja Vidic has raised a few eyebrows.

The club kick off their tour in Thailand before heading off to Australia, Japan and Hong Kong and in what was Moyes first major job since replacing Sir Alex Ferguson as manager earlier this summer, he’s gone for a blend of youth and experience in the 19-man squad.

As announced on ManUtd.com on Wednesday afternoon, the initial squad is:

Goalkeepers:

Anders Lindegaard, Ben Amos

Defenders:

Rafael, Phil Jones, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Alex Büttner, Fabio, Michael Keane

Midfielders:

Michael Carrick, Anderson, Tom Cleverley, Ryan Giggs, Wilfried Zaha, Jesse Lingard, Adnan Januzaj

Strikers:

Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck

The club confirmed that Robin van Persie and David De Gea will link up with the rest of the squad in Sydney while Shinji Kagawa is due to arrive in Japan for the third leg of the tour. Javier Hernandez has been given extended leave after only recently finishing his international commitments with Mexico so will miss the entire trip.

However, there is no explanation given on United’s official website for the absence of defender Vidic. While Sky Sports News suggest it could be linked with the centre-back’s troublesome knee injury that forced him to miss over a year of football, some newspapers are claiming he may have been left behind to try and sort out a move away to Italian giants AC Milan.

Other absentees through injury are Chris Smalling, Ashley Young and Nani and there is also no mention of them on the United website when the 19-man squad was announced, so I don’t think we should be reading too much into Vidic’s absence.