Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed Anthony Martial is the only player with a chance of returning to action for Manchester United against Southampton this weekend.
Man United went into their 3-1 win over Crystal Palace with eight injuries: Martial, Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata, Ander Herrera, Nemanja Matic, Phil Jones, Antonio Valencia and Matteo Darmian were all out.
Players like Romelu Lukaku, Scott McTominay and Diogo Dalot produced impressive performances in the absence of so many key players.
But Solskjaer, speaking at the Friday press conference, was unable to provide any positive injury news aside from suggesting Martial could return.
“It’s the last session today but we’re not going to take any risks, maybe Anthony, but it might just be a few more days before he’s ready so probably the squad will look similar to what it did at Wednesday,” he said.
However, Solskjaer did confirm Marcus Rashford, who came off the bench against Palace, would start the game on Saturday.
“He still felt it Wednesday night but he’ll be ready I’ll probably start him.”
The Norwegian will have no interest in rushing players back for Southampton ahead of the season’s closing stages, where freshness and diversity of options becomes doubly important.
His decision to throw on Jesse Lingard against Liverpool backfired, with the Englishman suffering a recurrence of the hamstring injury which had forced him off during the 2-0 defeat to Paris Saint Germain.
That, you could argue, was a rare mistake from the otherwise tactically astute 46-year-old. You suspect he will not take the same risk with Martial, even if he does want to play.
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