Mourinho hails teen defender Axel Tuanzebe after United's 2-0 pre-season win over Wigan Athletic

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has admitted youngster Axel Tuanzebe has the potential to have a bright future ahead of him. The defender came on for the final eight minutes in the Portuguese tactician's first match in charge against Wigan Athletic.

Will Keane and Andreas Pereira's second half goals saw the Red Devils give the former Inter Milan and Real Madrid manager his first win as United boss, which came against the Latics. Mourinho was impressed with Tuanzebe's display and also piled praise on the Brazilian, who managed to get his name on the scoresheet at the DW Stadium.

"You can play 90 minutes or 1 minute. Sometimes one minute is enough. With Axel, ten minutes is enough! The potential is there, you see it immediately," Mourinho told United's official website.

"You know him better than me because you know him for a few years but if anyone sees him for the first time, ten minutes is enough to see the potential."

On Pereira's performance, United manager said, "Andreas has lots of talent. He has incredible vision and an incredible technique. That's just talking about two players but the reality is the kids, without pressure and in a calm environment and not in the fire but in a cool situation for them, were very good. And it was very good for me to see what they can do."

Mourinho's first game as the manager of the 20-time English champions was not the perfect one as his players are getting used to his coaching techniques. However, the former Chelsea manager was delighted to see his men follow the instructions he gave during the training session against Wigan.

"I am very happy. The result is obviously not the most important thing, but it is always important," the United manager said.

"I'm happy because there were things we tried in training around some principles of our play defensively and offensively and I could see them.

"They were not perfect of course because the conditions are not the best with only 10 days of training, accumulation of fatigue and no sharpness, so it takes time. But I could see things that showed the players were starting to think in the way I think about football. That pleased me. Everybody played the match and everyone had a positive performance," he added

United will travel to China for the next two pre-season fixtures, where they will face Borussia Dortmund and local rivals Manchester City.