It’s a massively important week for Manchester United, as they will fight to stave off elimination from the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night, and then face their chief rival for a spot in the top four on Sunday.
Unfortunately, they will enter these crunch clashes, at Paris Saint-Germain in midweek, at Arsenal on the weekend, with a very short-handed squad. The injury crisis that has ravaged the team in recent weeks shows now signs of easing up, says interim manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Already down 2-0 on aggregate from the home leg of the tie, United are massive underdogs to what is some respects the biggest budgeted club in the entire world. Also, did you know that PSG owns one of the biggest esports teams in the world, PSG.LGD? Combine the passion for soccer and esports at Arcanebet and get 100% bonus up to 100 EUR using the bonus code TOP100. PSG has the most expensive roster in world football, and United will head to the French capital without their most costly, and probably best overall, outfield player.
Paul Pogba is suspended for Wednesday night’s match at PSG (red card from home leg of the tie). After the 3-2 win over Southampton on Saturday, Solskjaer was asked whether he would have some of the injured players back and available for selection in Paris.
“Not really, no. It doesn’t look like it,” he responded, before ruling out one of his best forwards.
“I don’t think we can risk (Anthony Martial). He has not been training yet so I don’t think so.”
It is too bad for the Frenchman that he won’t be able to participate in this epic clash in his home land.
In addition to Martial, Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic, Jesse Lingard and Ander Herrera all missed the come from behind win over Saints. And now it appears Alexis Sanchez will be out for a significant period of time as well, if not the rest of the season.
United have won 13 of 16 with Solskjaer in charge, but achieving 14 of 17, and then 15 of 18 is going to be extremely difficult; to say the least.
You saw what Kylian Mbappe did in the first leg, and trying to stop him from doing it again will be a massive task.
“We have a mountain to climb,” Solskjaer continued.
“We have quality players. Let’s see how many we have got, though. That maybe is the biggest thing. Certainly for our players, they know what we are capable of and we have spoken about it.”
The 46-year-old Norwegian maintains that his side won’t give up when they visit the the Ligue 1 powerhouse; in spite of the odds being so strongly against them.
“They know that they are part of a special club that can do something like this,” he continued.
“We are not going to go there and lay down. We are going to give it a go.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.