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Jose Mourinho says Victor Lindelof needs time to adapt at Manchester United

<<enter caption here>> on August 8, 2017 in Skopje, Macedonia.
Image: Victor Lindelof was not in the squad to face West Ham on Sunday

Jose Mourinho says defender Victor Lindelof will be shown plenty of patience after an uncomfortable start to his Manchester United career.

United's Premier League campaign kicked off in fine style on Sunday with a 4-0 win over West Ham, as new signings Romelu Lukaku and Nemanja Matic impressed.

However, Mourinho's other new summer signing Lindelof failed to make the bench at Old Trafford after a difficult debut in last week's Super Cup against Real Madrid.

Concerning the £30.7m acquisition from Benfica, Mourinho said: "I think Real Madrid was too early for him. He played because (Phil) Jones and (Eric) Bailly were both suspended.

"The difference between Lukaku and Matic is that they have years and years of experience of Premier League.

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Match highlights of Man Utd 4-0 West Ham

"In 2004 I bought a phenomenal central defender to England, Ricardo Carvalho. He was one of the best central defenders in the last decade in the Premier League.

"But he struggled and it was difficult for him to come and adapt in the beginning. Victor needs a little bit of time and he is going to have that time. Let's go step by step because Victor is a fantastic player."

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Mourinho is convinced Manchester United will be stronger this season but is not getting too carried away.

"Many times last season we deserved to win and we didn't, so the fact we won the match was the most important thing," added the Portuguese, who will be desperate to improve on last season's sixth place in the top flight.

"I think the quality of our performance, based on the confidence levels, was really high but I am not going to say the performance was perfect because it wasn't perfect. We made our mistakes and have room for improvement, obviously.

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Jose Mourinho says it was a quality performance from United against West Ham

"But it was a solid performance. We had good stability, good confidence levels and desire to play until the end. So good, really good.

"Now our challenge is to keep these confidence levels. I think we can be a better team than we were last season."

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