09/08/2017 09:00, Report by Adam Marshall, Adam Bostock

Ander Herrera says Manchester United's focus has shifted to challenging for the Premier League title, a mission which begins against West Ham United at Old Trafford on Sunday.

The Reds suffered a 2-1 defeat to Real Madrid in Macedonia on Tuesday night, when Casemiro and Isco both scored for the European champions before Romelu Lukaku pulled one back on his official debut.  

Herrera was disappointed by the result in Skopje, but the loss failed to knock the midfielder's confidence and he predicted afterwards that United will compete on four fronts this season.

"We have to accept Real deserve to be the winners," Ander told MUTV. "But we can take a lot of good things from this game. The Premier League starts on Sunday, there is no time to be upset, we want to be contenders for the title and we want to fight for every title this season. Last season, we won three trophies which is very good, but we didn't fight for the Premier League. That's our aim for this season and we have a very good squad. We are going to play in four competitions and we want to fight for all of them.

“In every position, we have two very good players, so I am optimistic for this season and let’s forget about tonight. I know it's difficult because it's a European trophy and that's important for the club. But now the Premier League, then the Champions League will come, the FA Cup and the League Cup. We don't want to give away any competition. We are going to fight for all of them and we are going to improve.

"We are ready and West Ham will be ready as well, because they have also played a pre-season and surely they are going to be fit as well. But we are playing at Old Trafford in front of our fans and we want to win the first game of the season. We have to respect them because they have a very good team, they have signed very good players. This season, I think the transfer window has gone good for them. They are going to be difficult to beat. Now is our chance to fight for the Premier League and we have to do it as well."

Herrera clearly felt Real were extremely difficult opponents and refuses to be downhearted heading into the domestic campaign. "We played against the best team in the world right now," he said. "We have to accept that they have won the last two Champions Leagues but, even so, we have the feeling that we could have drawn the game. The game has gone for them for the small details. The first goal was offside which is very upsetting for us because, until that moment, we were not suffering too much.

"Since the first goal, they were the better team and we have to improve on that because we didn't get that goal in a good way. For the future, we are going to improve on that. After the goal for 20 minutes or something like that, we suffered, we really suffered on the pitch. They had the control of the game.

"In the last five or 10 minutes of the first half, we came back again and we were the better team. In the second half after the goal of Isco, we really were the better team. We could have drawn the game with that chance of Marcus [Rashford], also the header of Paul [Pogba], the second ball of [Romelu] Lukaku's."