Jose Mourinho confirmed Alexis Sanchez was completely dropped from the Manchester United squad against Young Boys and was not injured. Sanchez came on in the 68th minute of United’s goalless draw with Crystal Palace at the weekend but failed to impress and was excluded from the Champions League 18 against the Swiss champions. The 29-year-old Chilean was previously dropped altogether from the matchday squad at West Ham in September and Sanchez has started just three of the 10 fixtures since.
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Mourinho also relegated Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba to the bench, although the pair emerged and played a key role in Marouane Fellaini’s 91st-minute winner. The United manager was annoyed that attention was drawn on players who were not selected, though. “No, Sanchez is not injured,” Mourinho clarified. “But is quite curious you always speak about the ones that are not playing. Tonight you had Marcus Rashford playing as a nine, that’s what you want, that’s what you ask all the time and you had.
“So don’t speak about Lukaku, who doesn’t score a goal at Old Trafford since March. And then you ask why he’s not playing. You put me in difficult situations with difficult questions but you could be nice to me and say, ‘Jose tonight you play Marcus Rashford as a nine’, and I could go from there. “But you say you left big names outside yes, I left big names outside. But I play other guys and for me the good thing was everyone that was on the pitch, for 90 minutes or 15 minutes, like Mata, all of them gave everything and I’m happy with the attitude.”
United have accumulated 10 points from their five Champions League games and trail Juventus by two heading into the final matchday. United and Juve have qualified but Mourinho’s side have a slim chance of topping the group if they beat Valencia and Juve fail to defeat Young Boys in Bern in a fortnight’s time. However, Mourinho expects United will finish runners-up.
“I think to be in the last 16 in this group is an achievement,” Mourinho added. “Not a big one, not a fantastic one, but is an achievement. Because we could finish third and be playing in the Europa League in February, which is not going to happen.
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“There are better teams than us, teams with more quality, with more realistic ambitions, but I always say when the team arrives in the Champions League quarter-final, not the last 16, but when a team goes over one knockout phase and arrives in the quarter-final, anything can happen. “But in this moment we are going to finish second and we are going to get a team that won the group so we can have Barcelona, we can have Real Madrid, I don’t know who else, but for sure we can have maybe Bayern Munich, we can have the best teams in the world.”