Mourinho dismisses Silva doubt ahead of derby

JOSE Mourinho has kicked off the Manchester derby mind games by dismissing Pep Guardiola’s suggestion David Silva could miss City’s trip to United.

The Reds sealed progress to the Champions League last 16 as Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford secured a 2-1 comeback victory against CSKA Moscow at Old Trafford.

Mourinho’s men top Group A after their club record-equalling 40th successive unbeaten home match — a run that will come under pressure as runaway Premier League leaders City arrive on Sunday.

Guardiola said Silva is a doubt for the clash after leaving the playmaker at home for their Champions League tie against Shakhtar Donetsk but Mourinho is not buying it.

“Do you want the truth or what do you want? You want the truth,” the United boss said, laughing.

“The truth is Eric Bailly, no chance for the weekend. Phil Jones a chance.

“(Marouane) Fellaini a chance, Zlatan (Ibrahimovic) a big chance and (Nemanja) Matic is injured but will play for sure.

“I’m telling the truth. He’s injured but he will play for sure. (Michael) Carrick no chance.

“It’s the truth, eh? No stories of (Alexandre) Lacazette, David Silva. All the truth.”

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger had ruled Lacazette out of last Saturday’s Premier League clash with United, yet the club-record signing overcame his groin injury to play all 90 minutes of the 3-1 defeat.

Mourinho’s swipe came before he left a press conference focused on a positive night for United in Europe.

“I’m really happy because we don’t want to qualify with a defeat,” he said after United made the last 16 for the first time since 2013-14.

“We don’t want to qualify with a bad performance, so the objective was to qualify playing well and to get at least a positive result.

“I think we did that very, very well. The performance was good, the attitude was good.”

Brendan Rodgers