United boosted as Bailly is discharged

UNITED defender Eric Bailly has been discharged from hospital following a head injury.

Bailly, 26, suffered a cut to his head in a collision with teammate Harry Maguire in United’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Chelsea that required lengthy treatment.

The Ivory Coast international was treated for 11 minutes at Wembley before he was carried off and checked into hospital. United did not have a specialist centre-back on their bench to replace Bailly, who could still be a doubt for Wednesday’s Premier League visit of West Ham.

“Eric is in hospital, going through all the routine checks and protocols,” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Sunday night. “He got a cut in the back of his head as well. I don’t really know [about his condition], I haven’t heard, or spoken to the doctor about it. It had a big, big impact on the game.

“Eric played well in the 42 minutes he stayed on and we conceded just after the restart there, which was very disappointing. Eric was a big part of us not having any chances against us, really. The blow to Eric’s head when Harry and Eric stayed down for a long time, we seemed to lose concentration for a little while and losing the goal straight after had a massive impact on the game.”

Centre halves Phil Jones and Axel Tuanzebe are sidelined through injury, Chris Smalling is on loan at Roma until the end of the season and United have no plans to reintegrate Marcos Rojo into their first-team squad after his loan with Estudiantes expired.