Mou slams FA medical team over Jones

Published on: 17 November 2017

MANCHESTER -- Jose Mourinho has launched a stinging attack on the FA's medical team by claiming Phil Jones had six injections before breaking down during England's friendly against Germany.

Jones lasted just 25 minutes at Wembley before hobbling off with a thigh injury and will miss Manchester United's Premier League clash with Newcastle at Old Trafford on Saturday.

And a furious Mourinho, who revealed he has not spoken to England boss Gareth Southgate, has insisted he has never known a situation like it during 17 years as a manager.

He told a news conference on Friday: "I have been a manager since 2000 and in 17 years I don't have one single player that had injections of anaesthetic to play a friendly. Never. Never.

"I am not an angel and I had players be 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.

"But Phil Jones had it and had it before the match and after 25 minutes he was out and he is out [against Newcastle].

Phil Jones injury Getty Images

"I am just telling a fact. He was injected in the afternoon of the match, he didn't feel good during the warm up. Between the warm up and the start of the match he had five more local injections to play the friendly."

Tottenham's Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Harry Winks, as well as Manchester City pair Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph, pulled out of Southgate's squad ahead of the friendlies against Germany and Brazil.

And Mourinho says he expects the players who were not fit enough for international duty to miss this weekend's Premier League fixtures.

Tottenham face Arsenal at the Emirates in Saturday's lunchtime kickoff while City travel to Leicester.

Mourinho added: "I expect that every player who was injured last week is not playing.

"If a player was injured and the player is ready to play [this weekend] there is something that is going wrong, so Phil Jones was injured and obviously he is injured for Saturday.

"If any player is ready for Saturday there is something strange."

Mourinho will be without Jones against Newcastle but he has been able to welcome back Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcos Rojo after long spells on the sidelines.

Ibrahimovic and Rojo have not played since suffering knee ligament injuries in April while Pogba has missed the past 12 games with a hamstring problem.

Mourinho revealed Ibrahimovic will be on the bench against Rafael Benitez's side while Rojo and Pogba could both start.

It is perfect timing for United as they look to eat into Manchester City's eight-point lead at the top of the table before the first derby on the season on Dec. 10.

Mourinho said: "I am confident that we can win [against Newcastle] and that is the way we have to look at it, to play every match thinking we can win, to play every match to try to win and to think that we play against Manchester City two matches where we can interfere in the situation.

"All the other matches Manchester City plays, we cannot interfere. We can watch it, we can agree with some referees decisions in their matches yes or no but we cant interfere.

"But in relation to Manchester City we have to wait to December when we play and again when we play them in April."

Source: espn.co.uk

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