Injury crisis keeps United waiting
Jose Mourinho has acknowledged that he faces an injury crisis as he takes his Manchester United team to face Premier League leaders Liverpool tomorrow.
Mourinho is expected to take a depleted squad, with several players battling to recover from the injuries that kept them out of Wednesday’s Champions League defeat in Valencia.
Defender Victor Lindelof and forward Alexis Sanchez will definitely miss the game as they continue to recover from hamstring injuries.
Anthony Martial, Luke Shaw, Matteo Darmian, Diogo Dalot, Scott Mctominay and Marcos Rojo will have fitness tests.
Goalkeeper David de Gea and midfielder Nemanja Matic, both rested against Valencia, will return, but United’s manager remains unsure how many players he will have to choose from.
Mourinho said: “In Valencia, only De Gea and Matic were available to play and didn’t travel by decision.
“Apart from that, the other players who didn’t travel were not fit to play. All of them had injuries and they were not ready.
“All of them didn’t train yesterday again and today there will be a little introduction to training – I don’t want to say test – to see the answer, to see if we can increase it a little bit tomorrow to have them available for Sunday.
“I hope that some will be available but, for sure, some will not be.”
However strong a side he is able to field, Mourinho acknowledged that his team, sixth in the Premier League, were still “far” from where he wanted them to be.
The manager stressed that putting together a squad was not just about financial investment, but also about spending time on getting the finer details of team building right. He said: “A football team is a little bit like a house. A house is not just about buying your furniture. You have to do work on the house and when it’s ready, you buy the furniture.
“You spend money on the best possible furniture, and then you are ready to live in an amazing house.”