PAUL POGBA COULD be out of action for a “few weeks” after suffering a suspected hamstring injury that took the shine off Manchester United’s successful return to the Champions League, manager Jose Mourinho said.
United, who missed out on qualification for Europe’s premier club competition last season, coasted to a 3-0 victory on Tuesday, with goals for Marouane Fellaini, Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford.
But, making his debut as United captain, Pogba lasted just 18 minutes of the Group A game before being forced off by an apparent left hamstring injury, with Fellaini taking his place.
The 24-year-old French midfielder reportedly left Old Trafford on crutches.
“I don’t know (what the severity is),” Mourinho told MUTV, the club’s in-house television station. “I just know from experience it’s a muscular injury. In my experience, muscular injury stops you from playing for a few weeks, I think.
“It looks for me too (like a hamstring injury) but I haven’t spoken yet to the medical department.”
Pogba’s injury will also concern France, who are hoping he is fit in time to play in the crucial World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria on 7 October.
Mourinho said he had midfield options for the weekend’s Premier League clash with Everton, including Ander Herrera, Michael Carrick, Fellaini and Nemanja Matic.
Rashford, who made his Champions League debut on Tuesday, said Pogba’s loss was a big blow.
“Paul’s going to be a massive miss and hopefully we can get him back fit as soon as possible,” said Rashford.
“We have to play every game to win. If we want to be champions, then we have to win (those) types of games (like Sunday’s). It’s going to be difficult. Everton are a really strong team.”
The teenager said United’s strong squad would help them cope with the loss of Pogba.
Rashford has looked bright in the early weeks of the campaign but, like Anthony Martial, has been unable to nail down a starting berth due to United’s impressive attacking options.
The teenager believes United’s embarrassment of riches is helping rather than hindering his and Martial’s development.
“It’s difficult when you’re in and out of the team but we have to find the positives out of it and I think we have both done that,” the England international said.
“I think the competition is always positive competition because we’re improving each other every day when we’re in training and in the games we’re pushing each other more and more.”
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Jesus he wouldn’t be human if it hadn’t affected him
There’s obviously the gust and bluster that goes with McGregor, he’s built up that caricature and it’s served him well. People will love or hate it but either way they’ll have an opinion on him and that’s what it’s designed to do but anytime you hear or read the stuff the lad talks about away from directly promoting a fight he comes across as a genuine, intelligent, hard working lad. Credit to him and the job he’s doing.
I’m being a bit overly cynical here and perhaps Conor is being very honest about what happened but I just hope that he’s not using the death of that Portuguese fighter as a bit of a smokescreen for whatever it was that was really going on.
That’s not his style, Nobody knows what he was talking about. Just speculation and could be anything.
Aye I’m aware of that, I did say that I was probably just being overly cynical and from what I’ve seen from McGregor he seems too honest and wears his heart on his sleeve too much to really ever be a convincing liar.
So next time you are being overly cynical and feel like you probably are, Why don’t you keep it to yourself instead putting it out there and talking crap.
cool your jets pro chef it’s an observation with no malice.
People look to deep into things, His budgie could of had a broken wing for all we know, He’s human with human problems. He was asked a question and he answered it, He told it how it was after that lad died and he was one of the first to offer his condolences.
Floyd Mayweather needs him?lol.he would need a hurl to land a blow on Floyd in a boxing ring.
John, Mayweather would need a hurl to land a blow on mcg in an mma fight.
In terms of making a 100 million off record ppv ,yes Floyd needs conor, a fight against Danny Garcia is not going to pull in the kind of numbers to make Floyd a 100 millions,even though this anticipated match up with boxing v mma is a complete publicity stunt by Floyd, and has worked fantastically
Irish begrudgery is alive and well judging by the last couple of days. First I see dozens of comments criticising McIlroy for donating his prize money to charity now people are accusing McGergor of using a man’s death for publicity.
I find it hard to believe when conor is giving honest and heartful opinion on how he felt, people still piss all over it.
Don’t let the Luas drivers read this
In 36 months he be on im a celeb get me outta here with ant and dec game over !!
Eh, like, eh 3 years like!?
He’s like marmite you either love him or hate him
Or think he’s alright but talks a lot of balls sometimes.
Marmite doesn’t talk a lot of balls but I don’t care much for its opinions on the Middle East.
He’s like marmite, he’s a dark savoury spread made from yeast and vegetable extract..
A new low for McGregor
$100 million? Absolutely laughable. What a cod.
It’s a bit hard to stomach the apparent grief displayed by McGregor and his regular taunts to opponents, eg prior to Aldo fight:
“I’m hungry right now. I’m prepared to kill this man and unify the belts.”
All shyte talk I suppose.
Not one mention of the Diaz rematch…something tells me he shot his mouth off a wee bit too much and he realised he was going to get 7 bells knocked out of him for a second time, then it would be game over.
This kind of sport does attract a certain kind of people. So violence will follow.
Oh your right I guess that’s why the majority of the athletes in the ufc either have degrees or MAs, military distinctions, run their own businesses, represent their countries at Olympic and national level, have black belts in multiple disciplines or teach martial arts and self defence to kids and their communities but yeah I guess they could also be that lay about, uninspiring, undisiplined kind of people and how stupid and “violent” are the fans for appreciating these low lifes! Your an ignorant fool.
Nick, 2 guys boxing the heads off each other is violent! It doesn’t take a degree to figure that out.
Brick wall.
@dublinlad interesting viewpoint you hold, do you see all contact sports in this light, or just MMA? Or if you are a fan of violent sports – do you just prefer the nice accents from the “certain kind of people” that attend rugby matches…
Typical. Time to hurl rocks at the bandwagon you just jumped from.
He pulled out of the media obligations to see if he could flex his pulling power to renegotiate a bigger wedge,he lost and then to use the death of a fellow pro for sympathy points The man has no shame
Egg chaser you haven’t a clue what your talking about.
Jaysus using the death of a fellow pro as an excuse, disgusting
If he was doing that it would have come up weeks ago when everything blew up. It’s obvious to me that he didn’t want to even mention it at the Time.
Conor had the perfect opportunity to show how upset he was by putting is hand in his pocket to pay to get the guy home but he didn’t and an undertaker had to offer his services for free. Talk is cheap.
I’m sure his mother has had press knocking on the door 7 days a week since he hit the big time. And not a mention from Conor of not wanting to leave Paddy Holohans retirement gig in Iceland… Gunnar Nelson described on MMA Hour how it was first time the core SBG team had been together in over 2 years and he didn’t want to leave. Ah well at least he’s come to his senses and said sorry to his bosses – we might get to see him fight again.
Idiot