Mason Mount will be out for “a long time” with the muscle injury sustained in Manchester United’s win against Manchester City, with Ruben Amorim stating the recovery time will be used to teach the England international more about team play.
Mount was forced off after 14 minutes of Sunday’s 2-1 derby victory at the Etihad Stadium. This continued his bad luck since signing in summer 2023, being restricted to 32 appearances owing to injuries. Amorim was asked how long the 25-year-old will be unavailable.
“Several weeks,” the head coach said. “I don’t know the exact date but it’s going to be for a long time. That is not my department [to understand the underlying reasons for injuries]. What I can do is to help Mason to teach him how to play our game when he’s recovering. Try to use that time for him to think about different things. The worst part is that we don’t have time to train like we should do when you are recovering from a lot of injuries. We are always travelling, have games, we don’t have all the team together so this makes it really hard to recreate the games before they come to the [actual] game.”
In Thursday’s 4-3 Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat at Tottenham, Victor Lindelöf had to be replaced on 45 minutes after he suffered his latest injury, the defender limited to nine appearances this season.
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Amorim said: “You can see with Vic [the same as with Mount]. Vic was recovering. We trained [both] really well, we pushed them, they made all the sprints that they should do before they come to a game. But the game is a completely different world.
“We try to manage this with rotation but even with rotation it’s really hard to have all the squad [fit]. With Mason Mount we are going to help him. It’s really hard for a player to be out for so long and he’s trying really hard.”
Marcus Rashford was not in the match-day squad for the Spurs defeat, having also been left out of the trip to City. The forward stated on Tuesday he is “ready for a new challenge”, which has been interpreted as a desire to leave. Amorim was asked whether Rashford was available for selection for Sunday’s Premier League visit of Bournemouth.
“Yes of course,” he said, repeating that Rashford’s omission was a selection issue not a disciplinary one. – Guardian
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