Man Utd Team News: Mourinho Offers Update – 4 Set To Miss Stoke Trip

Manchester United will look to continue their faultless start to the new season when they take on Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday evening. 

Ahead of the game, Jose Mourinho has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this afternoon and he’s given reporters a team news and injury update.

The United boss says he plans to assess his squad at training today before making a decision over his team selection after a number of players only recently returned from international duty.

No fresh injury concerns were reported during the two-week international break so Mourinho is expected to have a strong squad at his disposal against Stoke this weekend.

However, United do still have four long-term injury absentees who are set to miss out tomorrow as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw and Ashley Young continue to work their way back to full fitness.

Ibrahimovic – who rejoined United on a one-year deal last month – is still recovering from a serious knee ligament injury and isn’t expected to be available until early December.

Rojo is back in light training after also recovering from a knee ligament injury that he suffered last season but the Argentinean international is still not close to being available for selection just yet.

Shaw played for the under-23s recently after recovering from a foot injury while Young also turned out for the youth side last month following a serious hamstring injury.

However, while both players are understood to be close to making their returns to the first team fold, neither is expected to be included in the travelling part this weekend.

With a hectic September ahead that will see United compete in the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup, Mourinho has confirmed he’s ready to use the full depth of his squad.

The United boss told ManUtd.com:

“We have to wait and see. There is still one more training session. Not every player has reported yet, so today is the first time we are all together.

“The squad is strong. The players are ready to play, the decision to leave people on the bench is hard, the decision to leave people at home is hard. The fact that now we play every three days, in relation to that, I think is good because the players will feel now that they are all involved.

“I think, by the end of September every player [will have] played, every player [will have] started matches because it’s the normal movement of the squad and that is not a problem at all – that makes my control of my human resources better, easier and simple. But the matches are difficult and we have always the risk of being unable to keep a winning run, which is really difficult to do.”

United head in to the weekend action sitting top of the Premier League table with nine points from their first three games so Mourinho will be keen to maintain their faultless start to the new season.