Manchester United boss José Mourinho almost has a full squad at his disposal ahead of their Boxing Day clash against Sunderland, with Luke Shaw the only absentee for the Reds.
However, the United boss has indicated that the left back will be at full fitness too, having not played since the 4-1 EFL Cup quarter-final victory against West Ham in late November.
In his pre-match press conference and interview with MUTV, Mourinho said that it was good to almost have everyone fit and available for him to pick from, adding that morale was high amongst the side:
The squad is good. We don’t have many injuries. Even the Luke Shaw injury is coming to an end. We are fine. People are happy.
Obviously, in the squad, there are always people who are not playing so much, that they always feel a little bit of frustration because a football player wants to play and not be on the bench. But they are friends, they have very good relationships.
The period of bad results was a good period because it made people live together in a difficult moment, stick together, there was no conflict and everybody was in the same boat. So the group is very strong.
Chris Smalling is back, Eric Bailly is back, Phil Jones is fine, Marcos Rojo is fine, Daley Blind is fine, so it’s a position where it’s very important to have some stability in the options. We were in a difficult position a couple of months ago but now we are safe. We know that Bailly is going to the African Cup [of Nations] in January but, for the next three matches, we have them.
Mourinho did not expand on the injury status of Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who suffered a knee injury during United’s recent win over Tottenham, but the manager’s comments suggest that the Armenian will be fit for the encounter against David Moyes’ Black Cats.
