José Mourinho says the pitch for Manchester United’s Europa League group match may require a “miracle” to be playable and has questioned why Uefa allowed their final tie, against Zorya, to be played in mid‑December in Ukraine.
A pitch inspection is scheduled at 10am local time but temperatures at Odessa’s Chornomorets Stadium are expected to plummet to -9C overnight. Mourinho believes the frozen pitch, which was covered on Wednesday evening, could prove too dangerous a surface to stage the game. United trained on a small section of of the pitch at around 7pm local time when the turf was rock hard.
“They are putting some warmth on it, but it’s very difficult and people cannot make miracles,” Mourinho said. “Let’s hope everything goes OK. The pitch is hard and very icy. I think Uefa know the conditions of the pitch and everybody knows that in mid-December the conditions in Ukraine and Eastern Europe are more difficult.
“If Uefa are worried about it they should change the fixtures and not allow them to be played in mid-December. If the fifth fixture is here it’s the end of November and not mid-December, and that’s the problem. The hotel is good, stadium good, pitch bad. But it’s very cold. I know it’s difficult to have a better pitch. The stadium is beautiful and new. The pitch is the same. They are trying.”
Mourinho left Michael Carrick, Matteo Darmian, Antonio Valencia, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin behind but chose a squad for the match that included Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba.
“The players I had to leave out to protect, I left them in Manchester,” he said. “The ones that I brought, I brought them to play and not to protect them.”
United require a point to be sure of reaching next year’s knockout stage and are yet to win away in Group A, having lost at Fenerbahce and Feyenoord. “We lost to Feyenoord in a game we should win. The team played well and had the game always under control. When the team was pushing to win we lost,” Mourinho said.
“In Fenerbahce, another difficult place to go, we conceded in the first minute which gives the home team the best conditions to win. It’s a reality.
“If you want to qualify you cannot lose three matches away. That’s why we need points here.”