rewrite this title Man Utd sweating over fitness of four defenders for Chelsea trip

Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has confessed he is likely to be without as many as six defenders for the trip to Chelsea on Wednesday.

The Red Devils are playing for little more than pride domestically, with their sights set firmly on the upcoming Europa League final, and Amorim has confessed he will choose his Premier League lineups with one eye on the final in Bilbao.

Centre-backs Lisandro Martinez and Jonny Evans are both long-term absentees, while young Ayden Heaven has been missing since March. More recently, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt and Diogo Dalot have all gone down with injuries.

Not only will the majority of the latter quartet miss the Chelsea game, but Amorim confessed they are battling to return for the Europa League final against Tottenham Hotspur next week.

“I don’t know if they’re going to be available [for the final],” Amorim said. “We’re going to try and push. All the players want to play really bad. I don’t think they’ll go to Chelsea, but there’s a possibility for some in the final.”

Amorim confirmed he will pick United’s team to face Chelsea based largely around protecting his most-important players for next week’s final.

“I know the starting XI I am thinking for Chelsea, then I will see,” he said. “Even the way we play there, against Chelsea, I will see it and it’s going to be important for the next one.

“We need to perform and they need to perform. That is the important thing. Then we are going to, the same way, if there is a player that can get an injury [and is] not recovered for this game so [it] will put him in risk for the final, he will not play.

“But if it’s not that situation, we will have a lot of time to recover. And we cannot spend eight days, nine days without a game. That is a bad thing for the final so I think they will be prepared for the game.”

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