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Jose hints at 28-year-old returning to face Bristol City

Manchester United travel to Ashton Gate to face Bristol City in the quarter-final of this season’s EFL Cup this evening.

Having only just played at West Brom on Sunday and with a trip to Leicester City in the Premier League to come on Saturday, Jose Mourinho is expected to make a number of changes to our starting XI to face the Championship side.

One of those changes is expected to be Sergio Romero replacing David de Gea in goal.  The Argentine has played both our previous EFL Cup matches this season as well as starting our final two Champions League group stage matches.

We could also see Luke Shaw start another game at left-back whilst Matteo Darmian is expected to come in on the right-hand side of our defence after Antonio Valencia picked up a hamstring injury over the weekend.

Paul Pogba is available again after suspension and with his fitness levels it is widely expected that he will go straight back into the starting lineup to face both Bristol City and Leicester.

Another player who hasn’t played much of late is Henrikh Mkhitaryan.  The Armenian’s poor form has seen him dropped in favour of Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard in recent weeks.  However, the boss has hinted the 28-year-old will feature this evening.

Mourinho told MUTV:

“He [Mkhitaryan] can [be back]. I am making a few changes for the match, but not many because Bristol City are one of the best teams in the Championship.

“At the moment, we are playing [Juan] Mata, [Marcus] Rashford, [Jesse] Lingard or [Anthony] Martial and [Romelu] Lukaku. So, on the bench, we have [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic and one of the other ones, Martial or Rashford. So there is no space for everyone because you need balance on the bench too.”

Henrikh Mkhitaryan has played only 19 minutes in our last seven Premier League games combined and hasn’t featured in either previous EFL Cup match so far this season.