Jose Mourinho warns Manchester United to prepare for difficult season despite encouraging recent form

Jose Mourinho believes that Manchester United must still prepare for a "difficult season" despite his side's recent run of encouraging form.

The United manager claimed before the close of the summer transfer window that unless the club signed new players to his squad, his side would struggle to compete with rivals who have "fantastic squads" and are "investing massively".

Mourinho's desire to sign a new centre-back was an open secret, with Tottenham Hotspur's Toby Alderweireld and Leicester City's Harry Maguire both targeted.

However, following the early arrivals of midfielder Fred, teenage full-back Diogo Dalot and reserve goalkeeper Lee Grant, no further signings were made.

United then began the new season poorly, losing two of their opening three matches and conceding seven goals in the process, and the difficult start fuelled speculation that Mourinho and the club could part ways.

Ahead of the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers to Old Trafford on Saturday though, United have won three in three in all competitions, with nine points after five Premier League games following important wins at Burnley and Watford.

Mourinho might have chosen to revise his gloomy pre-season prediction on the back of these promising results, but the United manager maintained that his side will find it "difficult" to compete with the likes of champions Manchester City and well-fancied Liverpool.

"I am optimistic, but difficult season, yes," he said. "For sure, difficult season. I don't change that because we won two matches in the Premier League. Difficult season for sure.

"You see the level of the teams - you see Liverpool squad, City squad, Chelsea squad, Tottenham squad, Arsenal improving. It's going to be difficult. I am not saying we are going to have more points than last season because last season we collect a very acceptable level of points."

Mourinho added: "I think we are going to be a better team. We are going to play better than we did but I think it's going to be a very difficult season.

"Not just for us, also for the others because the others they can say exactly the same as I am saying and they can say: 'Oh, Manchester United, good team, good squad, City good squad, good team'.

"All of them, they can say the same thing. I think if they think the season is going to easy for them, I think they are wrong. But I don't think they are wrong because they all know the season is going to be difficult."

Wednesday night's 3-0 Champions League victory over Young Boys, the Swiss champions, was United's biggest and arguably most convincing win of the campaign so far, with Paul Pogba's first-half brace followed Anthony Martial's first goal since January.

Martial was surprisingly selected ahead of Alexis Sanchez in Bern but Mourinho confirmed on Friday that Sanchez would return to the starting line-up against newly-promoted Wolves.

Sanchez has seldom sparkled in a United shirt since his high-profile move from Arsenal in January, but when asked whether he thought the Chilean could improve, Mourinho side-stepped the question. "Every player has another level to step up," he said.

As well as Sanchez's selection, Mourinho also confirmed that Phil Jones has returned from a hamstring injury and said that the young full-back Dalot would not feature against Wolves, despite his impressive debut in Bern.

Dalot's first United appearances was delayed by surgery on a knee injury he suffered while with former club Porto last season.

Mourinho is conscious of rushing the £19million signing back too early but intends to recall him for Tuesday's EFL Cup third round tie against Derby County.