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Confirmed: 6 absentees for Man Utd against CSKA Moscow

 

Manchester United are in Russia to face CSKA Moscow in our second game of this season’s Champions League group stage.

We were comfortable 3-0 winners over FC Basel in our opening game a fortnight ago whilst the Russian Premier League side won 2-1 at Benfica.

Victory for either side would be a huge step towards qualification for the second round.

Jose Mourinho met the media today to give a team news and injury update before tomorrow’s game.

The boss confirmed that Phil Jones, Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick have all been left at home.

Fellaini picked up an injury in our 1-0 win at Southampton on Saturday following a strong challenge from Shane Long.  The Belgian could also miss our Premier League match versus Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Paul Pogba has also been out with a hamstring injury picked up in the opening 20 minutes of our game versus Basel two weeks ago.  With Carrick also out, Mourinho only has Nemanja Matic, Ander Herrera and 20-year-old Scott McTominay to choose from in front of the back four on Wednesday.

Phil Jones was due to return from suspension for our trip to Moscow but the England international has been ruled out through injury instead.  Eric Bailly and Chris Smalling could be the starting centre-back partnership to face the Russian Premier League runners-up.

As well as these four, Marcos Rojo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are long-term absentees.

The boss told MUTV:

“I won’t have Fellaini, I won’t have Pogba, we won’t have Carrick, so all three midfield players that we lose for this match.

“So there are not many solutions, but we try not to focus on individual battles or in specific areas on the pitch. We try to focus on the globality [team as a whole] and we are going to have a team with quality, with balance, to try to win the match which is our objective.

“It was only when I saw it on TV that I realised that Fellaini was very lucky [not to have a serious injury],” added the boss. “I do not expect him to be out for long.”

CSKA Moscow were held 0-0 at Dinamo Moscow in a derby on Saturday.