Ole assessing three players for Barça clash

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed that Manchester United are monitoring the fitness of Nemanja Matic, Ander Herrera and Marcus Rashford ahead of the crucial first leg of our Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona.

Herrera missed United’s last game, away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, while Matic was an unused subtitute, and the pair were both absent from the open session at the Aon Training Complex on Tuesday morning.

Solskjaer suggested that Matic could still be involved on Wednesday evening, but was less optimistic about Herrera’s chances of facing the Spanish champions.

“We still hope maybe that Nemanja can be ready, but Ander is probably out,” said the boss. “Antonio [Valencia] and Eric [Bailly] are definitely out.”

The Norwegian also provided an update on Marcus Rashford, who was absent at Wolves after injuring his ankle but has since returned to training.

“He needed an extra warm-up and hopefully he won’t get a reaction,” explained Solskjaer. “He joined parts of it at the end, but he couldn't join in the boxes, which is the fun part of training. Let's see tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be ready.”

Meanwhile, Luke Shaw and Ashley Young will be available for the match, despite domestic suspensions ruling them out of United’s next Premier League contest against West Ham on Saturday. In other positive news, Alexis Sanchez took part in training on Tuesday, after missing the last five matches.

“Today was his first training session today with the team,” confirmed the manager. “He has done lots of work and is now injury free. Now he’ll step up and train with the team. He will probably be in the squad for the West Ham game on Saturday and let’s see how much, and if he plays. But he’s not going to be able to join in tomorrow.”

Five Reds are at risk of suspension from the second leg at the Nou Camp should they pick up a yellow card in Wednesday’s crunch match: Herrera, Matic, Shaw, Valencia and Ashley Young.