Jose Mourinho says Manchester United are suited in “numbers and quality” to adjust to their fresh injury concerns in time for Saturday’s trip to Stamford Bridge.
The Portuguese boss’ opposite number, Louis van Gaal, confirmed his side’s casualty list in his pre-match press conference earlier on Friday, which has vice-captain Michael Carrick, centre-backs Phil Jones and Marcos Roojo and midfielder Daley Blind all sidelined from Saturday evening’s game at Chelsea.
“Their squad is amazing in terms of numbers of players, experience and solutions,” Mourinho told reporters at Cobhams training facility later on Friday.
The 52-year-old, earlier in his press conference, revealed that Diego Costa’s rehabilitation from a hamstring injury is going as expected and will start training with the rest of the squad next week. And Loic Remy, who missed last week’s trip to Queens Park Rangers with a calf problem, could face the Red Devils.
Van Gaal described United’s injury situation ahead of Chelsea as “the worst scenario”. With Jonny Evans yet to complete his FA ban for spitting at Papiss Cisse, the Old Trafford side are short on defensive options, while Wayne Rooney is expected to be redeployed in a midfield position.
Jose Mourinho Says Chelsea are at centre-Stage of Hate Crimes Because They Have Dominated the Premier League This Season. Image: Getty.
However, Mourinho insists United squad has “quality” players to fill in for the absentees.
“Every week, I have in my office not the team that I’m going to play against but the squad and all the options. This week when I arrived in the room, I realised what they have is amazing,” Mourinho said.
“They have (Juan) Mata, (Angel) Di Maria, (Adnan) Januzaj, Rooney, (Robin) van Persie, (Radamel) Falcao, (Andre) Herrera, Carrick, Blind and Fellaini.
“They have Rafael (Da Silva) and (Antonio) Valencia as right-backs. They have Luke Shaw at left-back. At centre-back, they have Chris Smalling, (Patrick) McNair and (Tyler) Blackett, who have played a lot of matches.
“I went to QPR with Drogba and no strikers on the bench.”
Why do Chelsea face social media backlash?
A recent research by football’s anti-discriminatory group, Kick It Out, found Chelsea are the usual suspect for hate comments on social media this season.
The publication noted that an estimated 134,000 discriminatory posts this season were targeted at the English Premier League with themes ranging from race, gender, s*xual orientation, disability, anti-Semitism and a much more.
Out of over 95,000 hate posts directed towards the English top flight, the league leaders were at centre-stage of 20,000 of them between August 2014 and March 2015. Liverpool (19,000), Arsenal (12, 000), Manchester United (11,000) and Manchester City (11,000) were not exempted.
And Mourinho opines Chelsea’s dominant spell at the summit of the standings has easily singled them out for prejudice.
He said: “I think is because we are boring- we have been top of the league since day one. That is something people in this country don’t like.
“Everyone would love the Premier League to be like the Championship where four teams are separated by a couple of points.
“I know that would be the ideal scenario in the Premier League, but we are trying not to allow that to happen.”
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