Jose Mourinho Confirms These 2 Players Will Start Against Feyenoord

Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has all-but confirmed that Marcus Rashford and Ander Herrera will start against Feyenoord on Thursday night but Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard are among those who could drop out.

United slumped to a disappointing 2-1 defeat to rivals Manchester City on Saturday which saw the Red Devils 100% start to the new Premier League campaign come to an abrupt end.

Pep Guardiola’s men raced in to a 2-0 lead before Zlatan Ibrahimovic halved the deficit just before half-time and Mourinho reacted by hauling off Mkhitaryan and Lingard at the break after below-par displays from the attacking duo.

Their replacements, Rashford and Herrera, both put in excellent performances during the second half and it appears they’ve now put themselves firmly in Mourinho’s thoughts ahead of United’s Europa League group stage opener later this week.

The Portuguese coach has confirmed that Rashford will play after his encouraging performance against City while Mourinho also suggests that Herrera has played his way in to the starting eleven for the Feyenoord game on Thursday night.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that Mkhitaryan and Lingard will be the two players to make way after being replaced at half-time but Mourinho insists their demotion to the bench won’t be a punishment for their poor displays at the weekend.

Mourinho is quoted as saying by ManUtd.com:

“For me, the next big game is against Feyenoord. He [Rashford] is going to play is the only thing I can say. I trust him completely and I know his future will be absolutely brilliant. He is mainly a no.9 and, if we want him to play in a different position, we need to work on him and improve him but his big personality is there.

“Normally, people look to the football talent but the personality at this level is very, very important and he was showing that last season, he was showing that immediately. He gave us in the second half what we needed but didn’t get from Micki or Jesse in the first half.

“For example, Micki has played in how many big matches? The kid Jesse – how many big matches? We speak about Eric Bailly. At Villarreal, he never had a derby of this dimension but [before the City match] he was our Player of the Month and had fantastic performances for us.

“He coped with many situations but you never know the way they are going to react, especially when you don’t know them so well. A couple months is too early to know them really well.

“Ander Herrera came on in the second half and was the one that allowed us to recover the ball fast to press higher, to bring the team higher to build a new wave of attack and put another long ball into the last line. Ander was phenomenal in his attitude.”

“Well, performances are the deciding factor [in how he’ll choose his team]. How I can decide is by performances, it’s the only way.

“So if you are asking me if they [the players he was disappointed with on Saturday] are going to play versus Feyenoord, no. Is it to punish? No. Just to decide in relation to what I have and what do I have [to help me decide]? Their performances, of course.”

United head to Rotterdam on Thursday night to begin their Europa League campaign and Mourinho will be demanding his players bounce back from their derby day disappointment by bringing home all three points from their Group A opener.