Man Utd team news: Key duo face late tests, OGS could be without 6 players for Barca

Manchester United will be looking to secure a positive result from the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona at Old Trafford on Wednesday night.

Ahead of the game, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this afternoon and he’s provided a full team news and injury update including the latest on a number of his squad.

United have plenty of injury concerns to worry ahead as they prepare to entertain the La Liga champions and Solskjaer has confirmed that Ander Herrera is set to miss out after failing to recover from a knock which kept him out of the defeat at Wolves last week.

Nemanja Matic was an unused substitute during the 2-1 loss at Molineux and the Serbian international will be given a late fitness test to see if he’ll be fit to feature against Barcelona tomorrow night after recently recovering from a muscle problem.

Neither Herrera or Matic were able to take part in training this afternoon but Marcus Rashford did join-in for the second part of the session after doing some individual warm-ups with the physios.

Rashford missed the Wolves game last Tuesday night due to an ankle injury and the striker will now need to be assessed on Wednesday morning to see if he’ll be in a condition to return to the squad against Barca.

Man Utd were handed some positive news as Alexis Sanchez was able to resume full training again today after overcoming a knee injury but the Chilean international won’t be involved against the Catalans.

Solskjaer also confirmed that Antonio Valencia is still unavailable due to a muscle problem while Eric Bailly is also out after failing to take part in training this afternoon so Man Utd could be without up to six players tomorrow night.

Solskjaer told ManUtd.com:

“We still hope maybe that Nemanja can be ready, but Ander is probably out. Antonio [Valencia] and Eric [Bailly] are definitely out.”

“He [Rashford] needed an extra warm-up and hopefully he won’t get a reaction. He joined parts of it at the end, but he couldn’t join in the boxes, which is the fun part of training. Let’s see tomorrow. Hopefully he’ll be ready.”

“Today was his [Sanchez] first training session today with the team. He has done lots of work and is now injury free. Now he’ll step up and train with the team. He will probably be in the squad for the West Ham game on Saturday and let’s see how much, and if he plays. But he’s not going to be able to join in tomorrow.”

United will be praying Matic and Rashford are passed fit to be involved tomorrow as they’ll need a strong squad if they’re to get a positive result against the La Liga giants.

Solskjaer is expected to name his best available eleven but Herrera, Matic, Valencia, Ashley Young and Luke Shaw are all one booking away from being suspended for the second leg, so they’ll have to be careful if any of them feature against Barca.