When asked his thoughts about Manchester United’s opponent on Monday night, Tottenham Hotspur, Red Devils boss Jose Mourinho gave a “no comment.” It was just a general, open-ended query about Spurs, but Mourinho had zero interest in discussing them with the media.
It was that kind of press conference session, and you can hear the audio of it (all four minutes and 19 seconds) at this link. Obviously, Mourinho is miserable right now as the negativity he consistently conveyed in the summer preseason is now carrying over to the regular season.
Let’s take a look at who Mourinho will have and won’t have at his disposal Monday night in the weekend’s Premier League headliner fixture. Midfielder Nemanja Matic and right back Antonio Valencia could both feature and possibly even start having now been back in training for over a week.
Defender Diogo Dalot could return to training soon, but he’s expect to remain out of action until September at least. He’s still recovering from surgery as is backup goalkeeper Sergio Romero and defender Marcos Rojo.
Midfielder Ander Herrera is also probably out, a doubt at best due to the hamstring issue he suffered at Bayern Munich in United’s final preseason friendly.
Alexis Sanchez missed the Brighton disaster and he now faces a late fitness test for this clash. Elsewhere, Luke Shaw suffered a foot issue in training this week, and he could be out of commission.
Yes, there’s a whole lot of injures there and we don’t know much about any of them because Mourinho said nothing in regards to injury/fitness updates at his presser today.
Flipping over to Spurs, Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has no injury issues in his first-team squad, and all his players who made deep runs with their World Cup squads are now back and fully integrated to the team.
Of course, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris could be dropped over his arrest last night for drunken driving. Spurs released a statement saying they will handle the manner internally. More on that over at this link.
United Starting XI Predictions, Team News: go to this link
Tottenham Starting XI Predictions, Team News: go to this link
On a side note, this match was supposed to feature a United fan protest against club Vice Chairman Ed Woodward, but now that got moved to next week’s league fixture at Burnley. So there is all kinds of discord all around United right now.
Kick-off: 8 pm (BST), Monday 27 August
Odds via Betway: United 6/4 Draw 12/5 Tottenham 9/5
Prediction: United 1, Tottenham 1
Feel free to post your own United and/or Spurs starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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