You can now scrap all injury reports and starting XI predictions for Manchester United versus Newcastle United. Your match previews will have to be substantially revised too. That’s because United Manager Jose Mourinho dropped a bombshell at his weekly news conference (video at this link) on Friday.
Mourinho revealed that tomorrow will see the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Marcos Rojo. Yes, all three are now back, and in contention for selection against the Magpies.
“All three selected for the match,” Mourinho told the press conference.
“Paul, you can clearly see Manchester United this season before Paul’s injury and after Paul’s injury. There are qualities in our football that influence our approach in matches, with Pogba and without Pogba, that’s as simple as that.
“Zlatan, last season we played with him every minute almost until he was injured; this season we learn how to play without him, but he’s a very important player for us and of course welcome back.”
Pogba has missing since mid September due to a hamstring problem. Ibrahimovic and Rojo have been out since April due to knee injuries. Rojo and Ibrahimovic are returning well ahead of schedule, especially so with the latter. Mourinho said of Ibrahimovic:
“Of course, incredible personality to fight such an important injury.
“We were all saying in 2017 he will be back, but one thing is Dec. 31, 2017, and another thing is mid-November. He was as an injured player the same super professional he is when he’s fit.”
The United boss added this regarding Rojo:
“So fantastic work, same as Marcos, is an important injury too, a big surgery; he played with the young boys on Wednesday and is fine, is confident, is also ready.”
With Pogba, his timeline was essentially kept a secret. No one really knew when he was supposed to come back, so instead all the estimates about how long he would be out were pretty much just speculation.
“Paul is obviously not the same dimension, was not a surgical situation but was also bad and all three are back,” Mourinho said.
As always, feel free to post your own starting XI and/or score prediction in the comments section below, and feel free to comment on other starting XI, score predictions that you’ve seen elsewhere online.
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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