Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has blamed bad luck for an incident that saw half of his squad caught up in an emergency plane landing on Saturday.
Dangerous weather conditions meant that an aeroplane carrying United team members from Shanghai to Beijing last night had to be diverted to Tianjin, a few hours' drive from the Chinese capital.
"We were supposed to fly with two different planes, with half of us in one plane and half in the other," Mourinho told journalists at a press conference today.
"The ones in the first plane were lucky because we landed safely and were in the hotel to have dinner.
"The second group was unlucky. The plane was not good. They had to make an unscheduled landing for a couple of hours, and then they arrived in the hotel to have dinner at one o'clock in the morning. But they had it with a smile on their faces which is good."
United are in Beijing to face rivals Manchester City on Monday in what will be the first ever derby contested between the two sides outside of the UK.
Neil Wilkes
