Man Utd Team News: LvG Confirms Double Blow With Nine Players To Miss Bournemouth

Manchester United will be without nine first team players for their trip to Bournemouth this weekend, manager Louis van Gaal has confirmed today.

The Red Devils head to the South Coast on Saturday evening looking to bounce back following their Champions League heartache in midweek but van Gaal has confirmed a fresh double injury blow.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of the game, the Dutch coach revealed that Chris Smalling and Matteo Darmian have been ruled out of the trip to Dean Court.

Smalling picked up a groin injury during Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat at Wolfsburg and was forced to finish the match playing as a make-shift striker as United have used up all of their permitted substitutes.

The defender will be joined on the sidelines by Darmian as he was forced off early on in Germany after suffering a hamstring strain and van Gaal has confirmed the Italian international will also miss the Bournemouth clash.

The duo join a lengthy injury list that includes six other first team players with van Gaal confirming that Wayne Rooney [ankle], Phil Jones [ankle] and Ander Herrera [hamstring] remain unavailable along with long-term injury victims Marcos Rojo [shoulder], Luke Shaw [leg] and Antonio Valencia [ankle].

To make matters worse, Bastian Schweinsteiger is also unavailable for selection this weekend after being slapped with a three-match retrospective ban by the Football Association for an off-the-ball incident against West Ham last weekend, so United will be without a total of nine players.

However, there was some positive news to come from van Gaal’s press conference as the United boss revealed that Morgan Schneiderlin has been passed fit to return after recovering from a hip problem that he picked up against the Hammers.

Here is what van Gaal is quoted as saying this morning by ManUtd.com:

“It is not so good because we have eight injured players because Darmian and also Smalling we can add to this list and Schweinsteiger is also suspended so nine players who are not able to play.

“Schneiderlin is coming back that’s not a problem but we have a list of eight players injured and Rojo has been operated on this week and it takes a long time. These injuries are very heavy – Shaw and Valencia have also been operated and that’s our problem.”

United head into the weekend action sitting fourth in the Premier League table following last weeks 0-0 draw with West Ham so despite the mounting injury concerns, van Gaal will be looking to get back to winning ways against Bournemouth tomorrow evening to boost their title challenge.