Antonio Valencia to miss United’s Young Boys clash due to synthetic pitch

Manchester United will be without captain Antonio Valencia when they take on Swiss side Young Boys in the Champions League on Wednesday. Manager José Mourinho explained in his pre-match press conference that Valencia was at heightened risk of sustaining a recurrence of a knee injury on the synthetic turf at the Stade de Suisse, and thus has not made the trip to Bern.

Quoted in the Manchester Evening News, Mourinho said: “We decide not to play Antonio Valencia because his knee is not a knee that needs an artificial pitch at all. So we brought Luke Shaw back to the squad and to the team. I told already Luke Shaw is playing tomorrow and apart from him we have Diogo, Ashley Young and Darmian ready to play. Valencia’s situation, we need to protect his clinical situation, apart from that we go with everything we have and have to try and win.”

We reckon that means we can expect to see Diogo Dalot make his United debut on Wednesday. The Portuguese full-back hasn’t appeared since making his £19 million move from Porto in the summer, though it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Mourinho opts to take advantage of the relatively weak opposition to give him some game-time.