Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has revealed midfielder Nemanja Matic will miss the start of the Premier League season following his side’s 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool. Serbia international Matic has played no part in United’s International Champions Cup campaign in the United States since returning from World Cup duty, and Mourinho has now revealed he has undergone surgery.
“Matic arrived from the World Cup, holiday, direct to surgery because something happened in the World Cup,” Mourinho told the club’s official website. “He has had surgery. He is out for the start of the season. He came from the World Cup with the injury and the time he had to rest on holiday was not enough to resolve the problem. I don’t know how long he will be out for.”
In Matic’s absence in Michigan on Saturday night, Liverpool ran riot against United with Sadio Mane, Daniel Sturridge, Sheyi Ojo and Xherdan Shaqiri all on target in a convincing victory. Andreas Pereira cancelled out Mane’s opening penalty with a fine free-kick to leave the sides level at the break, but United faltered in the second half.
With some players still away after the World Cup and Anthony Martial at home after the birth of his child, Mourinho felt his side – who next face Real Madrid on Tuesday evening – gained little from the encounter.
“We play Real Madrid and we have no more players than what we have,” he told MUTV. “Antonio Valencia comes from holiday – I think too much holiday for him. His condition was not good when he was back, then injury and also go back. Anthony Martial has the baby and after the baby is born – beautiful baby, full of health, thank God – he should be here and he is not here.
“So we have Alexis [Sanchez] and [Juan] Mata who play every minute of every match and now we have Real Madrid and after that Bayern Munich and that’s our start. I just hope the boys on deserved holidays, they take care of themselves a little bit and I hope somebody wants to do what [Marcus] Rashford and [Phil] Jones decide to do, which is to be back a little bit earlier to try and help the team because for the beginning of the season we are going to be in trouble.
“The majority of the players that played are not going to play – some of them are not even going to belong to the squad.”
He added: “I know the ones that are not always ready – sometimes you need them and you don’t have them. Eric Bailly was injured, he shouldn’t be playing, but when he saw that [Chris] Smalling in the warm-up was coming out, he made a decision by himself not to let his team play with five kids in the back against [Mohamed] Salah, Mane and company so he put himself there for 90 minutes.
“When we had gasoline we competed, 1-1 after 65 minutes, after that gasoline is gone. [Ander] Herrera, [Juan] Mata, Alexis [Sanchez], [Matteo] Darmian, these are the boys we have, they cannot give more. So this match was for nothing.”