Mourinho says Phil Jones won’t play against Newcastle

Manchester United return from the international break to host Newcastle United at Old Trafford in the Premier League on Saturday.

We are looking to get back to winning ways after going down 0-1 at Chelsea before the break whilst Newcastle are 11th after they were beaten 0-1 at home by Bournemouth last time out.

During the break Phil Jones went off injured after only 25 minutes in England’s 0-0 draw versus Germany in a friendly.

Our centre-back had been suffering with injury problems heading into the break and now Jose Mourinho has admitted he was very naive in letting Jones join up with his national team.

The boss is quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying:

“Of course, Phil Jones had a problem. He was having a problem for three weeks, he’s having problems that are stopping him to play for his club and then he plays for his club in extreme conditions [in their final match before the internationals] because it’s a big match against Chelsea.

“And then he goes to the national team and he comes home with an ongoing injury that everyone knows is an ongoing injury.”

Mourinho then referred to Chelsea’s Danny Drinkwater and Manchester City’s Fabian Delph pulling out of Gareth Southgate’s England squad with dubious injuries.

Worryingly, Mourinho went on to suggest that Phil Jones won’t be available to face Newcastle this weekend:

“I want to see this next weekend if the players that were not going to the national team, I want to see if they are going to play. Drinkwater? Delph? The only one that is not playing is Phil Jones.”

We’ve been hit with a series of injuries in recent weeks and whilst the absence of Phil Jones would be a blow for us we do have both Eric Bailly and Chris Smalling available at centre-back.

It is also possible that Paul Pogba and/or Zlatan Ibrahimovic could return to our matchday squad against Newcastle.  Pogba has been out with a hamstring since September, and Zlatan has been sidelined since the end of April.