Ander Herrera in action against Bayern

Team news: United v Leicester

Thursday 09 August 2018 09:30

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has supplied an update on his plans for the Premier League opener against Leicester City on Friday night.

Speaking to MUTV and in his press conference ahead of the clash with the Foxes at Old Trafford, the manager confirmed Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic are among several players who could miss the first game and those who only returned to training on Monday are not 100 per cent ready.

"No miracles," he declared. "The players with a proper pre-season are fit and they are strong. For example, Alexis Sanchez had a good pre-season with lots of matches and lots of minutes. He's more than ready but you cannot have the players who arrived only last Monday after the World Cup semi-finals or final and three weeks' holiday. You cannot expect them to be fit.

"They returned on Monday. They trained on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today, so you can imagine that they're not really fit and ready, but we have needs.

'We are ready for opening night' Video

'We are ready for opening night'

"It is an important match, we are the first to play and we are ready," said Jose at the start of his press conference...

"Unavailable is Romero - he had a surgery after his injury before the World Cup. Valencia - he was injured in pre-season. Marcos Rojo - he was injured in the World Cup. Dalot - he had a surgery at Porto by the end of April and is not yet ready. Ander Herrera - injured against Bayern. Matic - injured in the World Cup and surgery in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. I think that's it.

"This list of the injured players is an important list and today after training I will speak with that group of players because everybody is different - physically and mentally - and to see how available they feel they are because their feeling is very important and understanding how they think they can help or not help.

Nemanja Matic will miss the opening game of the season.
"After Spurs there is an international break. It gives us a couple of weeks to recover people and to prepare people better and to focus on the players that are available, so I'm not even thinking about that list of players I gave you - Matic, Valencia and so on. I focus just on what we have and we go with everything we have to the first match."