On Monday it was confirmed that Paul Pogba would miss the Manchester Derby on Sunday, as Manchester United would make no appeal to the Football Association handing him a three match ban for his red card against Arsenal on Saturday.
Tuesday brought news that Nemanja Matic is a serious doubt for the blockbuster fixture, leaving the Red Devils with nothing short of a true injury crisis in the midfield. With Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick also out, manager Jose Mourinho would be severely limited in his options for the middle of the park.
Mourinho said in an interview with the club’s official web channel, MUTV: “Matic is injured and when I say he is injured, he is injured.” Neither Matic nor Fellaini took part in training yesterday, and if both are absent on Sunday, then Mourinho may have no choice but to start a midfield pairing of Ander Herrera and Scott McTominay.
With Pogba absent, you already knew the complexion of the game was going to change as Mourinho would be without the player who is most crucial to his mounting an attacking strategy. If he’s missing Matic too, then the Portugese will also be without his key play-maker and table setter. As of now, it’s looking like it might be a “park the bus” kind of Sunday, if it wasn’t already going to be one already.
Matic was a doubt for the Arsenal clash due to a muscular injury that he sustained against Watford last week. He played through the pain this past weekend, I guess we’ll see if he can do the same this weekend.
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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