(Reuters) – Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba is facing a long spell on the sidelines due to a hamstring injury, manager Jose Mourinho said on Friday.
Pogba suffered the injury in United’s 3-0 Champions League win over Basel this month.
“He’s injured, he cannot play tomorrow and it’s not an injury that I can have the hope like I have with (Antonio) Valencia or (Phil) Jones,” Mourinho told a news conference ahead of the home Premier League game against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
“I have the hope to see them in training and to have a positive answer.”
Mourinho did not put a time scale on Pogba’s return but said he was thinking about the 24-year-old France international in the same way as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcos Rojo, who are expected to miss the rest of the year due to injuries.
“So long-term injuries I don’t speak about them,” Mourinho said. “Ibra and Pogba and Rojo, these players I don’t think about them.”
(Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
