One of the subtler developments surrounding Manchester United’s matchday activity against Bournemouth was that the club effectively confirmed their squad hours before kick off.
Clips on MUTV and X, as well as imagery on Getty taken by official club photographers, captured 21 United players arriving at Old Trafford. That is the 20-man matchday squad and third goalkeeper who participates in the warm-up.
It confirmed the only squad change from the midweek League Cup tie at Tottenham was Toby Collyer in for the injured Victor Lindelof. Those of us eagle-eyed to account for every player quickly concluded there would be no recall for Marcus Rashford, and so the news of a third successive squad omission was softened long before the teams were confirmed at 12.45.
Midway through Jose Mourinho’s first season as United manager, he referenced the Manchester Evening News’ squad stories when he confirmed Luke Shaw’s squad inclusion for the visit of Bournemouth in March 2017.
“Luke Shaw is selected for tomorrow so you won’t need to have the guys at The Lowry to take the pictures to see if he’s selected,” Mourinho laughed.
Back when United stayed at hotels (almost always The Lowry) before matches, the MEN regularly did a head-count of who was in and who was out of the squad. That stopped under Erik ten Hag, who ironically requested to resurrect the hotel usage last season but was overruled on budgetary grounds.
