Mourinho confirms that United will be without nine players on Sunday

Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Manchester United could be nine players short for their trip to Anfield on Sunday.

However, he will be able to call on three players who sat out the Red Devils’ 2-1 defeat to Valencia in the Champions League on Wednesday night: Ashley Young, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard.

The trio were on the bench for the clash, which ultimately left Man United second in their group and in the same situation as Liverpool in terms of their potential opponents in Monday’s draw.

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MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – MARCH 10: Jose Mourinho of Manchester United and Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool look on during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford on March 10, 2018 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

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Responding to the question of whether or not all three would start on Sunday at Anfield, Mourinho simply said: “You have only to find eight more.”

United are currently in the midst of an injury crisis, with Marcos Rojo and Scott McTominay joining the ever-growing list of those on the sidelines.

“Marcos Rojo no because he’s injured,” Mourinho said, according to the Echo. “The rest are not injured, they belong to the squad, we have lots of players that were not here today because they are injured, this is our squad, our players, they have a chance to play Sunday.

“Smalling is injured, Lindelof is injured, Darmian is injured, Martial is injured, Dalot is injured, the only two players I could bring and didn’t was De Gea and Matic.

“Matic, you are the first ones to make the stats and to say how many minutes he is playing and you are saying week after week that he needs a rest. If he doesn’t have a rest in a match we have already qualified then he would play until he explodes, was a normal option to leave him out.

“And David is a question of give a match or no to Romero, Romero is such a good goalkeeper that I played him in the Europa League final a couple of years ago. So these were the two changes I say that could play.

“Apart from that nobody, nobody. And last week, we had three matches, the majority of the players are the players that are playing all the time and I had no other options, includes a player like Marcos Rojo that I expect to play today and give a rest to Ashley Young as an example but at half-time he is injured and he is out.

“The players that I play, if this was a match to decide the group would be a very similar team, so that’s the reality. When you analyse Manchester United and analyse our ambitions and our level sometimes you should learn the situation a little bit better because you make certain kind of comments.”

In all, United will be without Diogo Dalot, Matteo Darmian, Luke Shaw, Marcos Rojo, Victor Lindelof, Chris Smalling, Scott McTominay, Anthony Martial and Alexis Sanchez for the Liverpool clash.

Jurgen Klopp will be unable to call on Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Nathaniel Clyne and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, with Trent Alexander-Arnold also a major doubt.

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Source: anfieldhq.com