Odion Ighalo is staying in Manchester, with United concerned he may be unable to return to the UK from Spain. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters
Odion Ighalo will not attend Manchester United’s training camp in Spain this weekend, because the club fear travel restrictions relating to the coronavirus outbreak will prevent him returning to England.
The 30-year-old striker touched down in Manchester last weekend, following his unexpected deadline-day loan switch from Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua. The coronavirus has claimed 722 lives in China, and restrictions could be placed on travellers who have been in the country within the past two weeks.
“Odion will stay in Manchester, because he arrived from China in the last 14 days,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær told MUTV. “Because of the situation in China, we’re not sure if he’d be allowed back into England if he leaves the country again.
“He’s staying here working with a personal coach, [an] individual programme and his family then can settle in England as well. That’s a plus,” Solskjær added. “Of course he might have liked to have come with the players and get to know them, but with the risk [of border restrictions tightening], we don’t want to take that.”
The club have described the decision on Ighalo as a “precautionary measure”. Solskjær also confirmed that the injured Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford will not travel. The rest of the United squad, including Scott McTominay and Axel Tuanzebe, will stay in Marbella for their warm-weather training camp.
“Scotty has done better in his recovery than we thought, so we will take him with us,” Solskjaer said. “Hopefully he can join in the training sessions and Axel as well, he’ll join in, so that’s two positives and it’s a good chance for them to use this time with the players.”
United will next be in action on Monday 17 February, when they travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, before taking on Club Brugge in the opening leg of their Europa League last-32 fixture.
“Of course, we come back and we kick on,” Solskjær said. “We want to get results. Towards the end, before this break, we played okay and didn’t concede too many goals. But we didn’t create chances and missed that little bit of spark – maybe because of the mental tiredness. Physically, they did really well in every aspect of the games but mentally, now, we kick on.” ( https://www.theguardian.com/)
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