Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has named three players who will be guaranteed starts for Sunday’s eagerly-anticipated Premier League clash against rivals Liverpool.
The two sides go into battle at Anfield on Sunday with contrasting fortunes; United having won just seven of their 16 Premier League games and limping into the last 16 of the Champions League, while a buoyant Liverpool top the Premier League table on the back of their best ever start to a season.
Jurgen Klopp’s side will be looking for a seventh win in a row in the Premier League when they welcome United to Anfield – and many will expect Mourinho to name a line-up intent on limiting their hosts’ attacking prowess.
The Portuguese boss made eight changes to his side for Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat at Valencia, with only Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata and Phil Jones retaining their place in the starting XI – the latter having a night to forget after scoring a comedy own goal after sliding the ball past Sergio Romero in the visitors’ goal.
And Mourinho, when asked about which players might have done enough to earn selection at Anfield, told the Manchester Evening News that Ashley Young, Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford would all start on Sunday, adding: “You have only to find eight more.”
Two of those eight will near-certainly be David De Gea and Nemanja Matic, who were both rested in midweek, but the United manager admitted he had a number of doubts surrounding many more first-teamers.
He continued: “[Chris] Smalling is injured, [Victor] Lindelof is injured, [Matteo] Darmian is injured, [Anthony] Martial is injured, [Diogo] Dalot is injured, the only two players I could bring and didn’t was De Gea and Matic.”
When pressed more about who could start, Mourinho added that bar Marcos Rojo, the rest of the side who started in Valencia “have a chance to play Sunday,” and of those we are likely to see Phil Jones, Eric Bailly, Paul Pogba, Juan Mata, Romelu Lukaku and Antonio Valencia pushing for action at Anfield.