United v Leicester: Ole's press conference

The clash with the Foxes comes just over 48 hours after victory at Aston Villa, while the rearranged fixture with Liverpool must also be considered by the United boss, as that will be played on Thursday night.

Ahead of an unprecedented week in the club’s recent history, the manager admitted that he couldn’t take the risk of overloading the players by asking them to play too much.

And he also hinted that several youngsters might have to be called upon, when speaking to the media ahead of the visit of Brendan Rodgers’s side…

Hi Ole, I thought I’d ask the team news but it seems quite hard to do. Are you planning the full sweep of 11 changes? Mason became the top scoring Premier League teenager for United in history today, by beating Rooney. What else could you say about him?
“I can say that Mason is learning all the time, he’s learning on the job which is not easy, it’s difficult and he’s had to bear a lot of responsibility. He’s popped up with so many important goals for us and Thursday night worked his socks off, go again. He’s tired, his body’s not really filled out yet, he might not be ready for all these games but he’s got something special. The kid just turns the game around in one split second and the goal today was excellent, so I’m delighted that he’s got back to his goalscoring best and is learning more and more all the other bits as well. I’ve said so many times about him and changes I don’t know. We’ll sit down with the sports scientists today, we can have a theoretical team now, but we’ll have to see how they react when they come in tomorrow, when they come in Tuesday morning and pick a team Tuesday afternoon.”

Hi Ole, congratulations. Just in terms of Tuesday, do you bring youngsters like Amad and Shoretire in? Are people like that in contention or will it just be kind of like mixing the first-team squad?
“They’re in contention [Amad and Shoretire] yeah, definitely and they’re in the first team squad, they’re training with us every day so I would think that some of the young boys will get an appearance definitely. If it’s coming on towards the end or if it’s starting I don’t know because I don’t know how the players will be on Tuesday when we see them.”

I think most people might have expected Manchester City to win yesterday and to have won the league. Does the fact that you are technically still able to win this league, does that complicate the issue for you this week? You might only be four points behind City next time they play…
“I wish I could have said let’s go full out in all the games but it’s impossible. That’s the hard bit for me – knowing that if I do play these XI again on Tuesday and Thursday it’s impossible. I run too much of a risk of injuring them, so talking about integrity in the league and stuff, don’t blame me when I have to make changes, because I have to. It’s not safe for them to play all four, so I’ve got to prioritise.”