Scott McTominay and Bruno Fernandes have both been included in the Manchester United squad to face Atletico Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League last 16 tie on Tuesday night. Ralf Rangnick's side return to action in Europe with the score level at 1-1 on aggregate following the first leg in Madrid last month.
United should have an almost fully fit squad to choose from for the crucial second leg at Old Trafford with Fernandes in line to feature after he missed the 3-2 win over Tottenham on Saturday after testing positive for Covid-19 last week.
The Manchester Evening News revealed earlier in the week Fernandes had returned to United's Carrington training complex. Luke Shaw, who was also absent for the Tottenham win as well as the 4-1 thrashing by Manchester City with Covid, was also at Carrington on Monday morning but was not pictured with the rest of the squad arriving at the Hyatt hotel.
READ MORE: Manchester United confirm team news vs Atletico Madrid
McTominay sat out the Spurs win with a calf problem but trained on Monday morning along with Fernandes, Shaw and the rest of the squad. Rangnick suggested there was a 'small question mark' on Shaw's availability and it seems like he will be the only senior player to miss the match.
"As it is right now we have all of the players available for tomorrow, there is a small question mark behind Luke Shaw," Rangnick stated at his pre-match press conference on Monday afternoon. "He has been training yesterday and today but we have to wait and see if he is fully fit to be available for the game. All the other players are back in training and available for tomorrow.
"Fernandes? He was tested yesterday; he tested negative and that's the reason why he could train today."
Anthony Elanga netted the valuable goal to earn United a draw in the first leg of the tie but all eyes will be on star striker Cristiano Ronaldo when the two sides lock horns again on Tuesday night.
The Portuguese netted a sensational hat-trick in the weekend win over Tottenham and has six goals from six Champions League appearances so far this season.
Ronaldo netted hat-tricks against Atletico with Real Madrid and Juventus in the Champions League knockout stage and Rangnick is optimistic his main man can produce a performance similar to his match-winning exploits at the weekend.
GALLERY:
When asked if he was concerned about Ronaldo starting again three days after a taxing match, Rangnick replied: "I'm not worried that he has not been able to recover so far. He's always been a person who looks quite a lot after himself, his body, he knows exactly what to do. So I'm not worried about that.
"If he can score another three goals, we'll see. It's not easy to score three goals against this team at all. His overall performance was just good, very good, and this is obviously what we hope to get from him again tomorrow night."
"But it's not just about Cristiano, it's about the team," Rangnick added. "We saw in the first-half in Madrid what we shouldn't do, how we shouldn't play. It's what we spoke about pre-match about tomorrow's game. We have to know what it takes and the rest is all about energy.
"It's very important, even more so against a team like Atletico, who don't mind the other team having the ball and in the last five games they had less than 50% possession of the ball. So we are aware of that and need to make sure if possible that we don't concede at all but it's definitely important to score the first goal ourselves.
"We're the team on Saturday that wanted to win that game, that was obvious, our supporters played a vital role and realised how much we wanted to win that game and tomorrow it will be similar.
"It's difficult for me to answer that question, there was a lot of discussion before that game. He showed what kind of professional player he is, what kind of level he can still play. For us, it's important performances like the one he showed, he's still a very important player for this team and can make a difference.
"Also tomorrow it will be good for us if he has a similar performance to the one he did against Tottenham."
Confirmed United squad members
De Gea, Heaton, Henderson; Bailly, Dalot, Jones, Lindelof, Maguire, Telles, Varane, Wan-Bissaka; Fernandes, Fred, Mata, Matic, McTominay, Pogba; Cavani, Elanga, Lingard, Rashford, Ronaldo, Sancho.
