Former Manchester City midfielder Nigel de Jong has warned Manchester United that their 2-0 win over Villarreal is nothing more than a warm-up prior to their Premier League clash against Chelsea on Sunday.
The Reds have struggled for consistency over the past few weeks leading to the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on Sunday morning following the team’s fifth league defeat in seven games.
Michael Carrick was named as caretaker manager and got off to a winning start in the Champions League against the Yellow Submarines, ensuring qualification to the knockout stages of the tournament.
Next up for the Reds is a Super Sunday clash against league leaders Chelsea, who De Jong believes are the best team in the world.
“It will be a massive test,” de Jong told Sky Sports.
“I think that you know the game from yesterday was a warm-up for the game that is coming up over the weekend.
“Chelsea’s completely different team, we saw that yesterday destroying Juventus in the Champions League and they are by far one of the strongest teams in the world.
“So he [Carrick] has to really prepare his team for this game. And I said what I said before, Villarreal was a warm-up game into this game.
“I don’t want to take anything away from the performance, Villarreal was for 60 minutes the better team.
“This is going to be a different game.
“The only thing I can take out of this is that the confidence was there and necessary in order to go against Chelsea. So this win yesterday was more than only a win. It was a win with a lot of intentional going forward for the game against Chelsea.
“So in that fact, he knows what he’s seen. I think he will pick the players accordingly to the system of Chelsea and who is in form on that particular day because also you have to see what you see through the week.
“So it’s going to be interesting for me how he is going to line up his team against Chelsea.”
Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho scored the goals against Villarreal which saw United qualify for the Champions League knockout stages with a game to spare.