Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Phil Jones are available to face Manchester City in Sunday's derby, while Marouane Fellaini will be given as much time as possible to prove his fitness, Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has said.

Jones has missed the last six games with a thigh injury but is fit again, although Eric Bailly remains sidelined.

Ibrahimovic could feature after missing the last two matches, while Mourinho is set to make a decision on Fellaini -- who has missed the last three games with a knee injury -- after training on Saturday.

Nemanja Matic sat out the midweek Champions League win over CSKA Moscow but will play against City, but Paul Pogba is suspended.

Mourinho told a news conference on Friday: "Zlatan is available, Jones is available, Fellaini I have to wait. [Michael] Carrick is not available, Bailly is not available. Matic is injured but he plays.

"It is one more big match against one of the best teams in the country, the first against the second, big match."

United head into the game at Old Trafford looking to end City's 13-game Premier League winning run and cut their eight-point lead.

In 19 meetings between Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, the United manager has won just four times, with only one of those being in a league game.

The onus will be on United -- on a 40-game unbeaten run at home -- to win, but Mourinho would not give anything away about how he might approach it.

He said: "Football is unpredictable, you can try, you can try, me as a manager I can try to define a gameplan, to work in a direction, but football is unpredictable, we don't know what can happen.

"There are so many things that are out of control that can totally transform the direction of the game. I wouldn't risk saying what game we are going to have."

Mourinho dismissed a suggestion that, even in December, it is already a two-horse race for the title and was scathing about Guardiola's view that set-pieces would be important because of the height available to United.

He said: "I think it will be easy for [Vincent] Kompany to compete against [Juan] Mata in the air."

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by Rob Dawson

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