Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho’s pre-match press conference at the end of this week was relatively devoid of the prickliness that has become a staple of the Portuguese’s recent interactions with the media.
The Red Devils head honcho did however offer an important update as to how long his Chilean star Alexis Sanchez will likely be out for, with the player suffering a suspected hamstring injury in training on Thursday as United prepare for their upcoming clash against Southampton at St. Mary’s this weekend.
Mourinho’s prognosis wasn’t too positive regarding the forward, as reported by the MEN;
“The first thing I can say is that in every club, when a player is not playing it is a simple manager’s decision. In our club when a player does not play it is always because of the player is not behaving and has disciplinary issues. Of course that is not the case again. He has an important injury, I don’t want to risk by saying for how long he will be out but from the top of my experience I would say he is not playing this year.”
Sanchez has had a torrid start to his United career which is approaching its one-year-anniversary. Far from the scintillating superstar who electrified at Arsenal, Sanchez is on the verge of becoming a bit-part player at United, with rumours hotting up that a move in January is imminent. However, with news that the star is likely to be out well into the New Year, this may well detract prospective clubs from registering an interest.
“The player is experienced, the player knows what the injury is and also from the top of my experience, just the painful scream and the way the injury happened I know it’s going to be for a long time. Is not the little muscular injury that in one week or 10 days the player is ready, is for me and also for Alexis, the feelings before the scans is that the grade is different than the Lindelof one and the Lindelof one was not an easy one so I think Alexis has what I used to call an aggressive muscular injury.”
Sanchez has made 30 appearances for Man Utd, and has only returned four goals and seven assists. He has been absent from the starting line-up for the past two league games and was dropped from the squad entirely for the midweek Champions League encounter with Young Boys.
He did however make the headlines for a very different reason recently.
