Mourinho rules out Rooney move

Jose Mourinho has insisted Wayne Rooney will remain at Manchester United until at least the end of the current season.

The club captain was again linked with a move to the Chinese Premier League, the latest reports claiming he has an offer of £1m per week on the table, but when asked about Rooney and the future of Ashley Young, Mourinho declared neither would be leaving.

“Yeah [Rooney is staying]. We don’t have players in we don’t have players out," he said. "[Young] is staying. Definitely stays, he is selected for tomorrow. It’s finished, he stays with me until the end of the season.

“We lost two players from the squad. You can say Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin did not play a lot, but the reality is they played some matches and when they played, other people didn’t. And when they played, others were rested.

“When Schneiderlin played against Feyenoord, played against Northampton, played against Fenerbahce, in these days it meant that Paul Pogba or [Michael] Carrick or [Ander] Herrera didn’t play.

“So you lose players, sometimes it does not look important because they were not first-choice players, but in the end they’re important.

“And if somebody is going to have a very difficult [fixture-wise] season, I hope that’s us and we’re in the cup competitions.

“We have Manchester City match postponed, we have Blackburn match and if we win we will have another match to be postponed.

“We are in the Europa competition with more matches, so our situation is really difficult. We lost two players, we cannot lose more.”

More games than ever before! eir Sport will show 23 live games from the Allianz Leagues, including five triple headers. The eir Sport pack is free to eir residential broadband customers.