Jose Mourinho favourite to be first Premier League manager to lose his job

It's not even August yet but Jose Mourinho is already the early favourite to be the first Premier League manager out of a job this season.

Manchester United's nightmare preparations for 2018-19 continued on Saturday as they were thumped 4-1 by rivals Liverpool in Michigan.

And with less than two weeks to go until the opening game against Leicester, coupled with a litany of post-match complaints, Mourinho could soon find himself on borrowed time.

Across the board with betting companies the Portuguese is favourite to either be sacked, or walk away from Old Trafford before anyone else in the league.

United are among the favourites for the title this year, yet Mourinho finds himself ahead of the likes of Claude Puel, Javi Gracia and Rafa Benitez in the sack race.

Mourinho's side are yet to win this pre-season, opening with draws against Club America and San Jose Earthquakes.

They were held 1-1 by AC Milan, but won the subsequent penalty shootout, before they were crushed by one of their main Premier League rivals in front of over 100,000 fans on Saturday night.

After the game Mourinho, who has cut an agitated figure throughout United's tour of the USA this month, said fans needn't have bothered attending and lamented the strength and depth of his tour squad, claiming most of them won't be there by the time Leicester visit on August 10.

He said: 'The atmosphere was good but if I was them I wouldn't have come. I wouldn't have spent my money to watch these two teams. I watched Chelsea versus Inter earlier and people had decided the beach was better. The stadium was empty.

Asked if he needs reinforcements, Mourinho replied: 'This is nothing to do with reinforcements. The reinforcement are (Paul) Pogba, (Marouane) Fellaini, (Victor) Lindelof, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Nemanja Matic, Antonio Valencia. These are reinforcements.

'This is not our team, not our squad. The majority of players that have played are not going to play. Some of them are not even going to belong to the squad. The accumulation of matches is killing progressively my brave boys because I have some brave boys.

'Reinforcements, you are saying players I'd like to buy and add to the squad. That is another thing, but this is not even 30 per cent of my squad, so don't look at this that way.

'We have four or five players that are dead because they care for the club, for the team, they try to give everything, even risking themselves because they don't want to let all the kids play by themselves against AC Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid. They don't want to do that.

'I just hope the boys on deserved holidays, they take care of themselves a little bit and somebody wants to do what Rashford and (Phil) Jones do, which is to be back a little bit earlier to try and help the team, because for the beginning of the season we are going to be in trouble.'