UNITED SPECIAL Fellaini fit but Lingard recovery is taking time
MAROUANE Fellaini ‘should be fine’ to play against Chelsea on Saturday but Jesse Lingard admits his own recovery ‘will take time’.
Lingard has missed United’s past three games with a groin injury, but was back in the gym at Carrington on Monday going through a ‘big boy session’ with Robin Thorpe, the club’s senior sports scientist and conditioning coach.
That suggested Lingard could yet return to the match day squad for the trip to Stamford Bridge, but it seems the 25-year-old will need some more time on the sidelines.
Taking to social media, the midfielder vowed to come back ‘stronger than ever’.
‘Back on the pitch soon, my injury will take time but will be back stronger than ever,’ he wrote.
There was some better news for Jose Mourinho, though, when it came to Marouane Fellaini, who sat out both of Belgium’s UEFA Nations League games against Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Fellaini missed the first day of training with the Red Devils last week but it appears that was also just a precaution.
“He should be fine, it’s just he wasn’t 100 per cent,” boss Roberto Martinez said
Meanwhile, Mourinho will clarify at his press conference tomorrow if Luke Shaw and Nemanja Matic are in contention after withdrawing from international duty last week. BELGIUM hosted Switzerland last week, so of course Romelu Lukaku scored twice against a team that lost to Sweden in the World Cup finals.
Switzerland’s Fifa ranking of eighth (above Spain) is flattering. Their defence included the oncereputable Fabian Schar, whose only start for Newcastle (yes, they signed him) this season was in the 3-1 Carabao Cup whipping by Nottingham Forest.
Let’s take a look at the international opponents Lukaku has scored against this calendar year: Switzerland, Iceland, Scotland, Tunisia, Panama and Costa Rica.
The teams he fired blanks against? Portugal, Japan, Brazil, France and England.
The club opponents Lukaku scored against in 2018? Watford, Burnley, Brighton, Bournemouth, Swansea, Sevilla, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Huddersfield, Yeovil, Stoke and Derby.
He has earned that flat-track bully tag.
Still, in light of Lukaku’s Friday night strikes, someone had the gall to tweet: “Imagine that. Get him service in an attacking squad and he scores goals for fun.” This is a striker who literally missed a vacant goal against Tottenham in August.
How costly has Lukaku been? Let us count the chances: He pulled a presentable opportunity wide at 0-0 against Brighton, put the ball past the post with the game goalless versus Tottenham and slotted wide at 1-0 against Derby. Lukaku struck the post at 0-1 at West Ham and skied a free header against Valencia. “I’m just not sure you are ever going to win the league with a goalscorer like him,” Paul Scholes said.
There are also the four one-onones he spurned in matches United won against Leicester and Burnley. “We didn’t score when we could in the first-half to kill it,” Mourinho said after the Derby shootout. That is about as close as he has come to publicly rebuking Lukaku.
But the Belgian must be testing his patience. If Lukaku was prolific rather than profligate United might be in the upper echelons of the Premier League. Had he converted against Brighton, Spurs and West Ham, those defeats are possibly transformed into three wins and, in a parallel universe, United are at the summit outright. The next week is a particularly testing one for Lukaku as he attempts to end his six-game fast; he returns to Stamford Bridge, a ground he has not scored at in 13 appearances, on Saturday before a tussle with Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci, the high priests of catenaccio. Chelsea had intended on re-signing Lukaku last year before United intervened to leave them – and Alvaro Morata – by the roadside. The build-up to 2017-18 was heavily dominated by the new number nines – Lukaku, Morata and Alexandre Lacazette – at the top six clubs and United’s specific decision to pass on Morata and Lacazette has been vindicated by Lukaku. Only he still has so much more to prove. For every top six strike from Lukaku (there are 20 of them, albeit one for United) there is a botched Samuel Luckhurst