Jose Mourinho was quick to blame certain national teams for the injury problems currently surrounding his side. Alexis Sanchez again looks set to miss out against Everton this weekend, while Phil Jones, Diogo Dalot and Marouane Fellaini could also be absent once more.
Jesse Lingard and Scott McTominay may return from injury, but Mourinho’s anger at the treatment of his players on international duty was clear after he had to cope with a depleted squad for the Champions League loss to Juventus.
“All of them national team,” the United boss said. “We play against Newcastle and we go to the national team period in a good situation and then after two weeks we lost Dalot in Portugal, we lost Fellaini in Belgium. We lost Alexis with Chile, we lost – who else? – McTominay with Scotland.
“And some of them, the national teams they were very professional with us and they send the players back and we could start the process early.
“But some of them, they weren’t and they kept the players and we didn’t even know the dimension and the nature of the injuries, so when the players arrived here two days before Chelsea, we have no idea what is going on.”
Questioned about Jesse Lingard’s fitness, the boss believes “he’s almost there”.
“He came from the World Cup with that problem. Can he help us in the next match? That’s the question we have to answer tomorrow. Or if we wait one more week and give one more week of stability to the work, so he can be back next week. So, he’s almost there. He’s almost there.”
On the issue of Alexis, Jose says the player needs to regain full fitness to be at his best.
“In this moment he’s struggling, because he’s injured and because he come to the Chelsea match to try to help the team, but his physical condition was not good and then he had to stop and he was not available for Juventus and he is not available for tomorrow again. So now the point is to be physically in the best conditions. I think he’s the kind of player that needs to be really sharp to play his best game.”
Is he boss running out of excuses for the team or thats just how it is?