Soccer-Man Utd's Mount set for long spell on sidelines with muscle injury, says Amorim

Dec 20 (Reuters) - Manchester United's Mason Mount will miss "several weeks" of action after he hobbled off early in the Manchester derby, manager Ruben Amorim has said.

Mount, who has missed several games since his move to United last year, lasted only 14 minutes in the derby where United stunned City 2-1.

The 25-year-old, signed from Chelsea for an initial fee of 55 million pounds ($69.03 million), has made only four Premier League starts this season.

"Several weeks, I don't know the exact date, but it's going to be for a long (time). It's part of football and you have to continue," Amorim told reporters, adding that alleviating his injury issues was not under his control.

"What I can do is to help Mason to teach him how to play our game when he's recovering. Try to use that time for him to think about different things.

"The worst part is that we don't have time to train like we should do when you are recovering from a lot of injuries.

"We are always travelling, have games, we don't have all the team together so this makes it really hard to recreate the games before they come to the (actual) game."

Victor Lindelof was also injured in Thursday's 4-3 League Cup quarter-final loss at Tottenham Hotspur, with the defender substituted at halftime.

"He was recovering, he was training really well, we push him, making all the sprints he should do before coming to a game but a game is a completely different world," Amorim said.

"It's really hard for a player to be out for so long and he's trying really hard. The same as Antony. If they try really hard we will help them until the end."

Amorim confirmed Marcus Rashford would be available for Sunday's home game against Bournemouth after the English forward was left out of the squad in their last two games, adding that it was not a disciplinary issue.

Rashford had said he was ready for a new challenge as he continued to be linked with a move away from Old Trafford but Amorim said the club needs "big talents" like the 27-year-old England international.

($1 = 0.7967 pounds)

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; editing by Pritha Sarkar)

((Rohith.Nair@thomsonreuters.com | Twitter: @RohithNair;))