Team News: Manchester United vs Southampton
José Mourinho has a full squad to choose from when Manchester United take on Southampton in the first Friday night Premier League game this season at Old Trafford.
The United manager welcomes back Chris Smalling and Jesse Lingard from suspension and injury respectively, while Paul Pogba is poised to make his second debut for United against the Saints, with Mourinho revealing that the Frenchman will play a part at the Theatre of Dreams tomorrow.
Speaking to MUTV ahead of the game against Claude Puel’s side, he declared that Pogba was fit enough to play ‘some minutes’:
He’s ready to play. We played against Leicester with players with less training than him and we look at that match as a way to improve them, to accelerate that process.
With Paul, it’s a bit of the same – not one single minute of any pre-season match or friendly but almost two weeks of work with us. Sometimes with the group, sometimes separately, and the condition is okay to play some minutes and to accelerate the process.
Of the other returnees, Smalling is back after serving his suspension for being sent off in the FA Cup final last season, while Lingard has recovered from the knock he picked up in the Community Shield win over Leicester City and may well take back his place in the first-team ahead of Juan Mata.
United will be looking to build on a promising start after beating Bournemouth 3-1 on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, with goals from the aforementioned Mata, Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic ensuring that the Mourinho era got off to the smoothest of starts.