Manchester United handed double injury boost ahead of trip to face Chelsea

Marouane Fellaini was injured playing for Belgium

Kevin Palmer

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has been given a double injury boost ahead of Sunday’s Premier League game against his former club Chelsea, as Marcos Rojo and Marouane Fellaini travelled to London as part of his squad.

Rojo and Fellaini were expected to miss the vital trip to Stamford Bridge after lengthy spells on the sidelines, but the duo appear to be close to a first team return after they boarded the United train on Saturday.

Fellaini’s presence may be crucial to United at Chelsea, with Mourinho often turning to the towering Belgian attacking midfielder if his side are chasing goals late in a game, while Rojo will be looking to make his first appearance since April after a serious knee injury.

The duo’s return will be a welcome boost to United, with boss Mourinho suggesting his side’s uninspiring performances in recent weeks has been due, in part, to a lengthy injury list.

Even though Mourinho hit out at his rivals for ‘moaning’ about injuries last month - in comments that many suspected were directed at Chelsea boss Antonio Conte, the United boss has been doing some complaining of his own in the build up to his return to Stamford Bridge.

“I should cry every week about our injuries and remember everybody day after day or press conference after press conference,” states Mourinho. “I should remember every day our situation, so it’s my fault, it’s my decision, it’s my way of dealing with problems, it’s my way of trying to motivate and give confidence to the players that are going to replace people.

“But again maybe I have to reconsider my profile. I know that I moan with a lot of things but I don’t do with injuries and probably I should because your question is a good question.

“I think any other manager would be speaking about Pogba every day. ‘Oh I don’t have Pogba, oh when I have Pogba, oh 10 matches without Pogba, oh all the Champions League group phase without Pogba, oh all the big matches against Liverpool, against Chelsea, against Spurs without Pogba.’

“I don’t speak about Pogba one single time, it’s only when you ask me about his situation and it’s not just Pogba. It’s Fellaini, it’s Carrick, it’s Ibra, it’s Marcos Rojo, it’s a big group of players. So yes, I think we are doing very, very well. Very, very well.

“I really think that you and the specialists, you know the football that we were playing in the beginning of the season. You know and now you pretend you don’t know.

“Now you pretend that we never played amazing football, we never scored lots of goals, we never scored amazing goals, we never had our midfield players and our defenders arriving in the opposition box and scoring goals and creating chances, I know that you know that.

“You just pretend because it’s convenient for you to pretend that this didn’t exist, but exist. And we miss our players, of course, and we had to play big matches without them and probably we are going to play one more without them again.”