While Jose Mourinho broke some great news to Manchester United fans on Friday afternoon, revealing that Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Marcos Rojo would all be in the matchday squad for Newcastle on Saturday, he also confirmed that Phil Jones is unavailable with injury.

Jones was substituted in England’s 0-0 draw against Germany with less than half an hour played. When he on the floor, waiting to be taken off, TV cameras showed that his thigh was strapped up. It seemed bizarre that Jones, a player who is notoriously injury prone, would be risked in a friendly when carrying an injury.

Mourinho has revealed it’s worse than that though. Apparently Jones had injections before the game so he was able to play through the pain and now he is unavailable for Saturday’s game against Newcastle. Our manager is rightly less than impressed.

It’s a World Cup year, so maybe Jones feels the pressure to make himself available at every given opportunity, but to put his fitness at risk for his club is not acceptable for the sake of playing in a friendly.

I am not an angel and I had players injected to play official matches, crucial matches, but a friendly… to get six local anaesthetic injections to play a friendly, I’ve never heard of that. Phil Jones had it, and had it before the match, and after 15 minutes he was out and tomorrow he is out. Between the warm-up and the start of the match he had five more local injections to play the friendly.




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