Jose Mourinho Confirms Wayne Rooney Won’t Play Against Feyenoord

 

Wayne Rooney will sit out Thursday night's trip to Feyenoord. United boss Jose Mourinho has named a 20-man squad for their opening Europa League group game but it does not include Rooney or Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was absent from training on Wednesday.

Antonio Valencia, Luke Shaw and Jesse Lingard have also been left out of the squad while Phil Jones has suffered lateral knee ligament damage which will keep him on the sidelines for a month. Regarding Rooney's omission, Mourinho said: “He has played every game since the start of the season and he played 90 minutes with England. I want him to be fresh for the next games. He plays in an attacking position, where I have lots of options. He took it professionally, like the other players.”

Marcos Rojo will fill in for Shaw, who broke his leg when playing in the Netherlands against PSV last season. He said “I didn't make the decision based on that negative episode, Luke is a very good player, who is working well and hard. My options in the first four matches have been Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke. It is time for Marcos to play.”

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is in the squad, as is the in-form Marcus Rashford, who is likely to feature from the start. The 18-year-old scored a hat-trick for the England U21 team last week and United were improved following Rashford's arrival from the bench during Saturday's derby defeat to Manchester City.

United are in Group A of the Europa League alongside Feyenood, Turkish side Fenerbahce and Zorya Luhansk from Ukraine.