Jose Mourinho has insisted that he left things 'very, very clear' after a recent meeting with Old Trafford flop Memphis Depay, telling a press conference on Friday that the young Dutchman was out of his first team plans because he plans to leave in January.
Chances to feature in games have been few and far between for Memphis - who has played just 20 minutes of Premier League football all season - and Mourinho was quoted byESPNthis week explaining why the 22-year-old has seen so little action.
Everton on verge of double swoop for Man Utd pair Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay https://t.co/5USf5Hm9DC
"In the past couple of months, my decisions in relation to Memphis were influenced by the feelings and information that he would like to leave in January and that we were going to have a real offer that we would be willing to accept.That obviously influences me.
"We had this conversation with a few players and we left things very, very clear. If I know, if I have the feeling that a player is leaving, I have to give chances to and develop other players.So then I go to [Jesse] Lingard, [Henrikh] Mkhitaryan, [Anthony] Martial, the players I know 100 percent are going to stay with us. And it is also a position where we have more options.
"Memphis was not playing last season. It was not that last season he was playing phenomenally and now this season he is not playing at all. That's not the situation."
31 - Morgan Schneiderlin (11) and Memphis Depay (20) have played a combined 31 Premier League minutes this season. Surplus.
Despite Memphis' apparent impending exit, Mourinho defended him against media accusations of unprofessionalism after pictures appeared to show him smoking a shisha pipe, saying: "He's a very good professional. I know the public image is always influenced by some details of their private lives, but the reality is that he is a very good professional, a very good boy.
"He has a high level of education, super polite, super professional, and works really hard.But it's a position where I have Martial, Mkhitaryan, [Juan] Mata and Lingard, plus [Wayne] Rooney and [Marcus] Rashford, who can also play in this position."
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