Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho met reporters on Friday to preview tomorrow’s Premier League fixture at home versus Huddersfield Town (video here at this link), and during the session he gave fitness updates on three of his players- midfielder Marouane Fellaini, defender Eric Bailly and striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Regarding the Swedish veteran, Mourinho also have an update on his potential future with the club. It appears, according to what Mourinho said here, that the report linking Ibrahimovic to L.A. Galaxy could be fake news. Or at the very least, it’s a huge nothing burger when compared to the endless hype and self-promotion that narrative received from the outlet that first pushed it.
Mourinho expects Ibrahimovic to return to full fitness soon and be involved for United again towards the end of February. The United boss said he spent plenty of time today with Zlatan at the Carrington training ground, and there was no talk about the forward making a move to Major League Soccer.
“He never mentioned absolutely anything to me, not an opinion, comment nothing at all, so I presume nothing is true in the news because I would probably be first to know from him. So I presume nothing,” Mourinho said.
Regarding the fitness of Ibrahimovic, he expects the Swede to be back in time for United’s UEFA Champions League clash with Sevilla on the 21st of this month; ditto for Bailly.
“They are working on the pitch but not yet with us as a group so they are not very close to a return,” Mourinho said.
“I want to believe that by Champions League time, around the end of the month, they will be back.”
While Mourinho was very optimistic about the return of that duo, his update on Fellaini was much less rosy. The Belgian suffered another setback in his persistent struggle with a knee problem that first appeared in October while on international duty. It appears the midfielder will be out a few weeks now.
“I don’t have good news,” Mourinho said of Fellaini. “I don’t have news because I don’t want to give news based on an initial approach but I don’t think the news is very good, he has a problem in his knee.
“It is the same knee but not the same local, was internal, now external, so let’s wait a couple of more days but out of the game tomorrow. Is not an ACL, a complete rupture of any structure of the knee, we are not going so far as that but we need him.”
“Champions League is arriving and lots of tough matches to play and probably we are going to lose for a few weeks. Two, three four or five, I cannot say at the moment.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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