Michael Carrick has been given a fresh midfield dilemma after confirming that Mason Mount is back in training and available for selection against Everton on Sunday. The Manchester United manager described the development as \u201cgreat\u201d after Mount resumed work with the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cMason\u2019s been training now for good number of days, so he\u2019s back around it which is great,\u201d Carrick said to MUTV.<\/p>\n
Mount\u2019s recovery arrives at a time when Carrick has been rotating through his midfield options while searching for the most effective pairing behind Bruno Fernandes. In Mount\u2019s absence, Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Kobbie Mainoo have all been used as Carrick looks to settle on a first-choice combination.<\/p>\n
There is still no certainty that Mount will return straight into the starting side. The midfielder has struggled with injuries and has started only 25 Premier League matches across four years at Old Trafford. Even so, Carrick has spoken highly of him, calling Mount \u201ca top player\u201d who \u201ccan have a big impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
His return also comes alongside strong praise for Mainoo. After last weekend\u2019s victory over Ipswich Town, Carrick described the young midfielder as \u201cimmense\u201d, with Mainoo now expected to be a regular starter this season following a summer in which he was left on the fringes of England\u2019s World Cup campaign.<\/p>\n
That leaves one place beside Mainoo up for grabs in the double pivot, and Mount must compete not only with Santos and Tielemans, but also with Carlos Baleba. United\u2019s most expensive signing of the summer brings a different profile to the role, with Carrick able to call on a player more comfortable in the defensive side of the game.<\/p>\n
Baleba, though, is not ready to solve the issue immediately. The 22-year-old is expected to need another couple of weeks before recovering from an ankle knock he picked up while playing for Brighton against Manchester United. He is still racing to be fit before the first international break of the season, and may not be ready to start until after the extended club pause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mount is back in training, but Carrick still has several options to weigh up in midfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[687,1083],"tags":[242,180,182],"class_list":["post-19169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-everton","category-man-utd","tag-injury","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}