Man Utd are finalising plans for pre-season and their fixture schedule will look very different compared to their standard summer.

Manchester United are set to stay in Europe for their pre-season fixtures and will snub the idea of a traditional money-spinning tour of the United States or Asia.

United are drawing up plans to play five games across the continent and although no matches have been confirmed yet, it looks like they will be remaining in Europe for the summer.

That is set to include games in Gothenburg and Helsinki, while United will return to Norway, a traditional pre-season outpost, and are likely to play in Oslo. There are plans for a fixture in Poland, a country United very rarely travel to, with Warsaw the expected host city.

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There will also be a game closer to home, with United set to return to Dublin. They had also considered Scotland as a potential venue for that fixture.

It will make for an unusual pre-season, but it is an unusual summer, with the World Cup taking place in the United States and the final of the 48-team tournament not until July 19, a week later than usual.

That will affect pre-season plans for Europe’s elite clubs, who might not have a full contingent of players back until the start of August, with the Premier League campaign kicking off on the weekend of August 22.

11 different American cities are hosting games during the World Cup and that has made what is traditionally the strongest market for pre-season tours less competitive than usual, with the focus on the tournament rather than hosting club sides during pre-season. United had travelled across the Atlantic for their previous three pre-season tours.

The club had been keeping their options open to see if they received any offers for a tour that were too good to turn down, but will now focus on a European pre-season. That could involve a longer training camp somewhere on the continent to break up the time at Carrington and allow for some team bonding.

Staying in Europe and playing what will be considered a series of individual games is likely to be less commercially successful than a traditional tour for United. The club had also weighed up the advantages of a mid-season trip to Saudi Arabia this term, but have eventually opted against the possibility of earning £5m to £10m by playing a couple of games in the Middle East during one of their breaks between games.