Manchester United team news: Herrera ruled out against Chelsea

Jose Mourinho has confirmed Ander Herrera will miss Sunday’s Premier League clash with rivals Chelsea but does not know how long the midfielder will be out of action for.

Herrera suffered a hamstring injury in the first half of United’s 0-0 draw with Sevilla on Wednesday night and Mourinho appeared to shift the blame on the club’s medical staff afterwards.

The 28-year-old had only just returned from a near four-week injury lay off to start against Sevilla and Mourinho has now confirmed the United midfielder is set for another spell on the sidelines.

“Ander Herrera is out,” Mourinho said at his news conference on Friday. “I don’t know how long for – two, three, four, five, six weeks – I don’t know, but a few weeks for sure.”

The Spain international has developed into an important player in United’s recent matches against Chelsea, often deployed in a man-marking role of Eden Hazard.

With Herrera joining Marouane Fellaini on the sidelines, coupled with Paul Pogba’s recent woes with Mourinho, the task may fall on the young shoulders of academy graduate Scott McTominay.

The 21-year-old has earned rave reviews from Mourinho in recent months but it would still be a huge ask of the novice to mark one of the world’s best players in what would be just the third Premier League start of his career.

In fact, only Kevin De Bruyne (7.94) and Sergio Aguero (7.89) have secured a higher WhoScored rating than Hazard (7.85) in the Premier League this season, while the Chelsea No.10 is the only player to have completed more than 100 dribbles this term (115).