Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has given an update on Mason Greenwood, ahead of Manchester United’s Premier League match against Crystal Palace on Thursday night.
The flourishing forward has been excellent in his breakthrough season and amid Project Restart he edged Wales international Daniel James out of the team. Now it sounds like James could start against Roy Hodgson’s side.
The 18-year-old academy graduate has a swollen ankle from Monday’s 2-2 draw against Southampton, when a shockingly late challenge from Romeu went unpunished by the match officials despite a VAR check…
It diminishes the hope I have for VAR and we discussed it this week on our podcast (next episode out Friday morning). Let’s not forget the Harry Kane stonewall penalty that was ignored last week.
Greenwood played through the pain on Monday night and was eventually substituted for James after 84 minutes of play.
“I’ll give Luke [Shaw] as much time as possible — him and Mason, their ankles are swollen and a bit blown up,” Solskjaer told ManUtd.com. “I’ll give them as much recovery time as possible to give them a chance. Brandon [Williams] should be fine, he has a gash over the eye but if he can see out of it then… we’ve not trained obviously this morning yet but we’ll hopefully have two, maybe all three of them.”
So, it’s not terrible news from the boss, we could still have all three of the players in question tomorrow night. He touched on Romeu’s challenge and how it could have been worse for Greenwood, adding: “In the heat of the moment he’ll play on and the adrenaline gets you going, and then you get a little bit of reaction after. I said after the game that my ankles were a bit weak after many years of football. But obviously Mason carried one and I think it should have been looked upon by the referee definitely.”
Solskjaer will need to address this again if the referees don’t act promptly and protect his players, especially Greenwood who is still a kid. Southampton were not shy with their elbows and they lost the run of themselves during stages of the game.
For now our fingers are crossed that all players will be fine.
Read more: Diogo Dalot ready to step in at left-back for Manchester United against Crystal Palace
