Ralf Rangnick has revealed that his Manchester United side are ready to return to action following the recent outboutbreak of Covid-19 at the club, and he admitted that will have to make a few “difficult decisions.”
France Midfielder Paul Pogba is the only United player out due to injury.
United closed their training ground following the Covid outbreak, with only eight outfield players available to train.
The outbreak led to the 20-time champions’ recent Premier League games against Brentford and Brighton being postponed.
However, the Red Devils will play Newcastle United on Monday the 27th of December after a 16-day break.
"Today was the third day of training this week and we had 25 outfield players," Rangnick said. "Paul Pogba is the only one missing out, everyone else was on board.
"We closed the training ground in order to break the chain. The development of the last week is extremely positive. We will train tomorrow and there will be a day off on Christmas Day before we have the last training session on Sunday."
Rangnick confirmed his players are in good shape as they had "done their homework" at home.
"They had their schedule to train at home and they stuck to that schedule and programme," the German said.
"I can say most of them, if not all of them, might be available but I'll have to take some difficult decisions on who will be in the squad and the starting XI."
Rangnick also called on the Premier League to reintroduce the rules that allowed clubs to make five substitutions in a match.
"As far as I remember, the five substitutes were implemented, it was decided every team could substitute five players when Covid started one-and-a-half years ago and I think it was the right decision to do that, to have more options to change players, to save energy for players, especially if they had only just recovered from Covid," he explained.
"And the same is true right now, we have a similar situation to the one we had one-and-a-half years ago and therefore I wouldn't see any reason why it shouldn't be as it was one-and-a-half years ago
"As far as I know in Europe, England is the only country where they only allow three subs.
"In the other four big leagues in Europe, you can substitute five players.
"And, on the other hand, you're still allowed eight field players on the teamsheet, and if you have eight field players on the teamsheet you should be able to replace five, but you can only replace three of them.
"You will always have five players on the bench who cannot be substituted and cannot play."
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