EARLY TEAM NEWS FOR WOLVES V UNITED IN FA CUP
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must rotate his defence on Saturday evening, with Ashley Young suspended for the Emirates FA Cup quarter-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux.
The 33-year-old full-back is set to serve a one-match ban in the competition after picking up a second yellow card of this season’s competition, in the fifth-round victory at Chelsea.
Diogo Dalot is arguably the favourite to take his place at right-back, with Antonio Valencia and Matteo Darmian both injured, although Eric Bailly did play in that position at Paris Saint-Germain this month. Phil Jones has not played since the Premier League win at Fulham on 9 February due to illness.
Meanwhile, further up the pitch, Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez is expected to be unavailable with the injury that he suffered in the recent victory over Southampton at Old Trafford on 2 March.
Mason Greenwood, who made his Premier League debut at Arsenal last Sunday, is presumably a doubt after an illness prevented him from joining Nicky Butt's Under-19 squad in Denmark for today's UEFA Youth League tie against FC Midtjylland.
WHO COULD RETURN?
Solskjaer’s squad was boosted last weekend when Nemanja Matic and Anthony Martial both returned to action from injury, with Marcos Rojo also among the substitutes once again.
Our photographers at the Aon Training Complex last Friday also captured Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard taking part in a session, which suggested the trio are moving closer to comebacks.
In his latest weekly blog, published this week, Mata wrote: “On Friday, I was able to put in some work out on a pitch again and my recovery is progressing as hoped. Hopefully I can rejoin the team soon.
“Thank you for your messages and I hope that you have a fantastic week. I’m going to keep doing everything I can to be back fit as soon as possible.”
WHAT ABOUT WOLVES?
Nuno Espirito Santo is lucky enough to say that his squad currently has no injuries at all, which is almost unheard of in modern football and especially at this busy time in the season.
Ryan Bennett is about to serve a two-match ban, but that only applies to the Premier League after the defender collected his 10th booking of the season in the 2-0 win over Cardiff City at Molineux.
Their last starting XI, for the 1-1 draw against Chelsea, was: Rui Patricio; Doherty, Saiss, Coady, Boly, Otto; Dendoncker, Neves, Moutinho; Jiminez, Jota.
The Black Country club are confident of causing an upset, according to Romain Saiss: “We have to switch on for this game now,” he has said this week. “It’s an important game for us to get the semi-final at Wembley. We play at home, and we have to be ready for this game. We’re going to prepare for this game all week now and try to do something great on Saturday.”
Ex-Wolves forward Don Goodman, who scored the winner in their last quarter-final win, at Leeds in 1998, also said: “They’re all seasoned professionals, playing under a wonderful coach, so they don’t need any advice from me. I’m sure they’ll all realise it’s a fantastic opportunity – one that may never come around again. If you’re a team outside the top six, you don’t get these opportunities every year.”
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