Football
Mark Ogden, Senior Writer, ESPN FC 7y

Memphis Depay wants to leave Man United in January, Jose Mourinho says

MANCHESTER -- Jose Mourinho has said Memphis Depay's absence from his Manchester United plans is a result of the player having made his determination to leave the club clear two months ago.

Depay, a £25 million signing from PSV Eindhoven in summer 2015, has started just one senior game under Mourinho this season -- the EFL Cup tie at Northampton Town on Sept. 21 -- and made four substitute appearances totalling 20 minutes in the Premier League.

The 22-year-old Netherlands international has been overlooked completely since making an eight-minute outing off the bench against Feyenoord in the Europa League on Nov. 24 and, with Everton and AS Roma set to make offers in January, Mourinho said he must accept his place down the pecking order following his admission that he wants to leave.

"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," Mourinho told a news conference.

"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."

Depay was pictured earlier this week smoking a shisha pipe during a break in his homeland -- an image that did little to diminish allegations that he has failed to give his United career the required focus since arriving from PSV.

But Mourinho defended the youngster and said: "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.

"So we have six, seven players. When I have the feeling and information that the player probably has a big chance to leave, then I have to care more about the others.

"But if you arrive in January and nothing happens -- and we have lots of matches -- then if he is going to be my player until the end of the season I will help him and he will be useful for us.

"But the players who are not having many chances to play, we don't have the right to stop them leaving."

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