José Mourinho has admitted for the first time he is “not confident” that David de Gea will sign a new contract with Manchester United.
The Spaniard’s deal expires next summer, though the club have an option to extend it for a further 12 months. In August United believed they were close to a breakthrough, yet De Gea passed up the chance to commit himself to the club when asked about his future before the Champions League match at Young Boys last month. United will exercise the one-year option but want the goalkeeper to stay longer.
“I am not confident,” Mourinho told Sky Sports. “But I am not worried. I am not more than worried. I cannot find the word in English. Let’s see what happens. Only the club, David and David’s people can answer to that. My comment is only one: everybody knows how good he is, everybody knows how important he is for Manchester United. And if Manchester United wants to be better than it is now and not worse than it is now, obviously that would be very important to keep David.”
Separately, Mourinho criticised Belgium, Portugal, Chile and Scotland for their treatment of United players over the recent international break. The manager is unhappy with them for not sending Marouane Fellaini, Diogo Dalot, Alexis Sánchez and Scott McTominay respectively back to the club when injured on international duty. He said McTominay was the most likely to be available to face Everton on Sunday.
Serbia’s Nemanja Matic and England’s Luke Shaw did return after proving unfit when they reported to their national squads. “We go to the national team period in a good situation,” Mourinho said, reflecting on the late victory over Newcastle. “Then after two weeks we lost Dalot, Fellaini, Alexis, we lost McTominay. And some of them, the national teams, were very professional with us [regarding Matic and Shaw] and send the players back and we could start the process early. But some of them wouldn’t and kept the players and we didn’t even know the dimension and nature of injuries.
“So players arrive two days before Chelsea, we have no idea what is going on. But we try to solve problems step by step.”
Mourinho pointed to Sánchez’s injury problems to explain why the forward is struggling. Sánchez was unavailable for the 3-2 defeat at Brighton in August because of a minor injury but has been fit enough to make eight appearances, from which he has scored only one goal.
“He’s struggling because he’s injured,” Mourinho said. “He came to the Chelsea match [playing for five minutes as a substitute last weekend] to try to help the team but his physical condition was not good. So he was not available for Juventus and is not available for Everton again.”
Sánchez managed only three goals last season for United after signing in the winter window.
