Man Utd Team News: Trio Out But Solskjaer Confirms Triple Boost Ahead Of Bournemouth

Manchester United will be looking to close-in on the top four with a win when they welcome Bournemouth to Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon.

Ahead of the game, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this morning and he’s provided a full team news and injury update including the latest on Romelu Lukaku, Anthony Martial, Alexis Sanchez, Chris Smalling, Marcos Rojo and Scott McTominay.

Let’s start with the positive news and Solskjaer has confirmed that Lukaku, Martial and Sanchez have all taken part in light training this week and could be back in contention against Bournemouth if they come through full training today.

Lukaku has missed the last two matches due to personal reasons while Martial sat out the Boxing Day win over Huddersfield Town with illness but the attacking duo could be back in the squad on Sunday.

Sanchez hasn’t featured for Man Utd in over a month after tearing his hamstring towards the end of November but the Chilean international has been back working on his fitness at Carrington lately and could make his return to action against Bournemouth.

However, Smalling will miss the game this weekend as he’s still at least two weeks away from recovering from a foot injury while the visit of Eddie Howe’s side on Sunday will also come too soon for Rojo and McTominay.

Solskjaer told ManUtd.com:

“We’ve not had a lot of training since [the Huddersfield game]. We had yesterday [Thursday] off so today is the first day back.

”Romelu [Lukaku], Anthony [Martial] and Alexis were [in] light [training] yesterday so hopefully they can join part of the training today and let’s see after they’ve come through. Marcos [Rojo] and Scott [McTominay] look like they can take part very soon as well, so it’s looking better.

“Smalling has got a sore foot, so I don’t think we’ll see him until the New Year anyway – maybe not even before Spurs [on 13 January] probably, around that time, but you never know.”

Solskjaer has enjoyed the perfect start to life as caretaker Man Utd manager having won his first two matches in charge and the Norwegian will be keen to make it three wins from three to try and cut the gap on fourth-placed Chelsea.