Manchester United will look to book their place at Wembley when they take on Chelsea in the quarter finals of the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge on Monday evening.
Ahead of the game, Jose Mourinho has given ManUtd.com an early team news and injury update following their hard-fought draw at FC Rostov in the Europa League last night.
Despite enduring a gruelling round-trip to Russia, Mourinho has confirmed he has no plans to field a weakened side against Chelsea on Monday night as they look to continue to fight on three fronts.
The Portuguese coach claims the FA Cup is an important competition and while he will freshen things up against the Blues, Mourinho will still field a strong side at Stamford Bridge.
Unfortunately for United, they’ll be without striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic as their top scorer will start a three-match domestic suspension after being hit by a violent conduct charge following an incident with Tyrone Mings last weekend.
One the positive side, Eric Bailly will be available for selection once again after missing the draw at Rostov through suspension and the Ivory Coast youngster is expected to get a recall in defence.
Mourinho told the clubs website:
“We have three days and we have to travel. We have to go to London. It’s really hard. We don’t have Zlatan, of course not, but we go with everything we have. We don’t put a [weakened] team out like some clubs sometimes – Manchester United cannot do that.
“We know this Europa League is very important for us, and the FA Cup is beautiful. We cannot go there with a [Reserve] team, we’ll try to manage it within our squad and get a good team to compete with them.
“Manchester United is Manchester United; it’s the winner of this competition. It’s not Chelsea’s fault we were given this Monday match. We’ll make changes, as we played on Thursday, but we cannot go to Chelsea with a [Reserve] team.”
Henrikh Mkhitaryan made his return from injury on Thursday night and the Armenian international scored the opening goal before being replaced by Anthony Martial in the 67th minute.
Mourinho hinted to ManUtd.com that Mkhitaryan is still not back to 100% condition so the playmaker is expected to drop to the bench against Chelsea on Monday.
There was no update on Bastien Schweinsteiger after he missed the trip to Russia with a minor muscular problem so we’ll have to wait and see whether he’s recalled to the squad.
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However, Wayne Rooney is expected to be back in contention after not being included against Rostov while Luke Shaw will also be hoping for another chance to impress having started against Bournemouth last weekend before being axed in the Europa League.
