Injured Mata to miss Bridge trip

UNITED are set to be without Juan Mata for two weeks through injury.

The 32-year-old, was conspicuous by his absence for Thursday’s Europa League round-of-32 second leg with Real Sociedad and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed the Spaniard is out for a fortnight with an unspecified injury.

United have not triggered the one-year option in Mata’s contract to keep him until next year and he is about to enter the last four months of his deal.

Mata missed five matches recently as he had ‘been away’, according to Solskjaer, and he is expected to be unavailable for the three Premier League away games with Chelsea, Crystal Palace and City, as well as United’s Europa League round-of-16 first leg against AC Milan.

United have had an impressive injury record this season but have suffered a spate of recent problems, with Scott McTominay, Donny van de Beek, Edinson Cavani and Daniel James doubts ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Stamford Bridge.

Van de Beek and Cavani have been sidelined with muscular injuries for the last three games and McTominay sustained an impact injury in the 4-0 first leg thrashing of Sociedad last week.

James was forced off in the second half against Sociedad on Thursday and will be assessed before United travel to London.

Paul Pogba is ‘a few weeks’ away from recovering from a thigh injury and could be back for the FA Cup quarter-final at Leicester on March 21.

Bruno Fernandes captained United against Sociedad at Old Trafford and was replaced by Marcus Rashford at half-time, despite the 4-0 aggregate advantage.

Solskjaer said that giving the duo match minutes was the right preparation for the Chelsea fixture.

“They are very, very fit, good athletes who recover well,” Solskjaer explained.

“Normally they (Fernandes and Rashford) play every game so I was very pleased to give them 45 minutes because 45 minutes on a Thursday is good preparation for a Sunday, definitely better than no minutes and then maybe you train too much.

“We played against a very good team and the start of the game showed why it was important I played a strong side,” Solskjaer added.

“They got a penalty early, luckily he missed it. You don’t want to go into half-time one or two down, you want to get players through unscathed.

“I think it just shows how good the performance was last week, the 4-0 win.”

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