Alexis Sanchez, Marouane Fellaini, Diogo Dalot and Scott McTominay returned injured and Jose Mourinho is angry their countries did not send them back earlier for treatment.
England sent Luke Shaw straight back because he was injured, as did Serbia with Nemanja Matic and the Portuguese feels United have lost valuable recovery time.
Mourinho has ruled Sanchez out of tomorrow’s game against Everton at Old Trafford because of his adductor injury and is unsure when the others would be fit.
“All of our injuries were with the national teams,” said Mourinho. “We played against Newcastle and we go into the international period in a good situation.
“Then after two weeks we lost Dalot in Portugal, Fellaini in Belgium, Alexis with Chile, McTominay with Scotland.
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“Some of them with the national teams were very professional with us and sent the players back and we could start the process early.
“But some of them wouldn’t do that and they kept the players. We didn’t even know the dimension and nature of the injuries so when the players arrive two days before Chelsea, we have no idea what’s going on.”
Mourinho also ruled out re-signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic to solve United’s goalscoring problems, insisting he still has total faith in Romelu Lukaku.
Mourinho insists bringing back Ibrahimovic, who turned 37 this month from LA Galaxy is not the answer, even though the Swede scored 28 goals in his first season with Manchester United.
Lukaku, who only has four goals this season, is enduring an eight-game goalscoring drought and Mourinho insists it is only a matter of time before he hits form again.
“I always feel that every game,” he said. “One day will be the game, one day he will score and one day his confidence levels will be back to normal, which clearly they are not.”
Mourinho feels he has no other option to play Lukaku as his No9 because Sanchez is injured and he prefers to use Marcus Rashford out wide.
“If we decided to give a rest to Lukaku and play Rashford, then who plays as a winger?” he said.
“We are not in the best moment to try to think about resting players. The solutions is to use the players we have.”