Manchester United central defender Eric Bailly is reportedly a bit concerned about his future with the club as he has not featured since the big Manchester Derby win on April 7. The very first player signed in the Jose Mourinho era at Old Trafford could be considering his options elsewhere, as he’s seemingly frozen out right now. The Daily Mirror has more at this link.
Bailly, who used to be a first team regular, was fit to face Arsenal last weekend, but Mourinho dropped the Ivory Coast international from his match day squad entirely. The 24-year-old also missed United’s end of the season awards, in which goalkeeper David de Gea won a record fourth player of the year honor, claiming he was too ill to attend.
Mourinho, during a media opportunity today, opened up on why Bailly isn’t playing. In the United boss’ refreshingly candid answer the explained that Bailly has no injury, and that he’s behind Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo on the depth chart, because those two players are currently competing for World Cup roster spots on their national teams (England and Argentina) this summer.
Bailly’s nation, the Ivory Coast, didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
“There’s no situation, he is fine, no injury,” Mourinho said.
“He is one of our five central defenders and honestly my work is not about World Cups and preparing players for the World Cup or giving chances to players at the World Cup.”
“But he’s the only central defender whose country is not in the World Cup so if I have to make a kind of more emotional, effective choice to try to help my players. He’s the one I’m not going to help until the end of the season. Rojo, Lindelof, Jones, Smalling:
all of them are wishing to make the squad for the World Cup and Eric is not under that pressure.”
“I try not to make those sentimental decisions – I try to be a good team manager and that means being a bit cold, a bit selfish,” Mourinho continued.
“But I’m not as bad as that and I still have space for a little bit of feelings so when I look to the other four central defenders fighting for a position in the World Cup I am giving less to Eric.”
United vs. Brighton Game Preview Resources
Odds: Man Utd 14/19, draw 3/1, Brighton 9/2
Manchester United starting XI prediction: go to this link
Injury Report, Team News for Both Sides: go to this link
Match Score Prediction: United 3, Brighton 0
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.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.