Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has revealed that defender Eric Bailly may require surgery on his "serious" ankle injury.
The 23-year-old has not featured for the Red Devils since the 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on November 5, missing each of their last eight matches.
A decision will now be made in the coming days as to whether Bailly, who picked up the injury on international duty with Ivory Coast last month, will have to go under the knife to rectify the damage.
"I think it is serious. I don't know [how long he will be out]," Mourinho told reporters. "We are trying a conservative treatment but if the treatment is not resulting then probably it will end in a surgery procedure but let's wait a little bit more."
Asked to elaborate on the injury problem, Mourinho added: "I'm not a doctor, I think the doctor can inform you. There's nothing to hide, but I don't want to be speaking about it. I want to leave it with a doctor.
"[Against Bournemouth], I played [Chris] Smalling and [Phil] Jones and we had [Victor] Lindelof and [Daley] Blind on the bench. Marcos Rojo was injured but nothing really big.
"During the whole season, we've had problems with central defenders but because the number is four or five, we manage always to have [players available] and Chris Smalling is playing amazingly well for seven or eight matches in a row maybe, so we are fine."
Bailly, a £30m signing from Villarreal in 2016, had featured 10 times in all competitions prior to picking up the injury.
Daniel Lewis
