Jose Mourinho rules out signing a new defender in January

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has ruled out signing a new defender this January, stating that he will wait for Eric Bailly to return from international duty with Ivory Coast. The defender is unavailable until next month following his involvement in the African Cup of Nations but the Portuguese manager believes he has enough backup to make up for his absence.

United have Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind in the sidelines but were linked with a move for Benfica centre-back Victor Lindelof, which has been categorically rubbished by the manager. They were also reported to have made an opening bid for Roma defender Kostas Manolas, which is unlikely to move forward given the latest revelations by the manager.

"No, I wait for Bailly. I hope the three can control the situation in those eight matches. I will try to rest one in every game. On Saturday I will rest one, against Hull another - and we'll try to make a rotation between these three. We still have Daley Blind as the fourth defender in case we need him to play there and we also have Michael Carrick, so let's try," Mourinho said, as quoted by Goal.

Meanwhile, Mourinho also revealed that Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin will not be considered for selection given their current contract situation. Both players are likely to move out of the club this window, but the Red Devils are yet to receive an acceptable bid for the pair.

"I will allow them to leave if the right offer comes," Mourinho added. "Until this moment? No. Is this a good situation? No. Why not? Because I don't think about them as options in this moment.

"In normal conditions they would probably be selected for the match tomorrow and they aren't because we're waiting for something that a couple of weeks ago looked like 100 per cent and at the moment looks like zero per cent, because we don't have any offer that is close to the quality for the players we have."