Jose Mourinho has taken a 21-man squad to Turkey with Manchester United facing off against Fenerbahce in a crucial Europa League tie at the Ulker Stadium on Thursday.
A win against Fenerbahce will take Manchester United a step closer to qualification to the knock-out stage. Having already emerged 4-1 winners over the Turkish side at Old Trafford, Mourinho will look to repeat the exploits at Istanbul. Phil Jones is expected to return for the Red Devils after a lengthy lay-off from injury and could feature in his first competitive game since January.
Chris Smalling, Memphis Depay and Michael Carrick have all stayed back at Old Trafford while Antonio Valencia is ruled out after suffering a fracture to his arm. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who trained alone at Carrington recently, has made it to the squad and could be expected to get some game-time as a substitute before being eased into the starting XI in the future.
Mourinho has also taken Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Anthony Martial along with the Armenian international, all of whom missed United’s 0-0 draw against Burnley during the weekend. Bastian Schweinsteiger returned to training last week but remains out of action as he is ineligible to feature for the Red Devils in the group stage. Jose Mourinho will look to return to winning ways after a barren spell of form where they have picked up only 2 wins out of their last six encounters in all competitions.
With that in mind, we can expect a strong line-up to feature opposite Dick Advocaat’s Fenerbahce, who are riding on a good run of form themselves having beaten Karabukspor 5-0 during the weekend.
