Jose Mourinho has made five changes to his Manchester United side for the visit of Middlesbrough this afternoon.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who came off the bench to score in the 3-1 Boxing Day win over Sunderland, and Anthony Martial come into the XI to join Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the front line.

As a result, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard drop to the bench, while captain Wayne Rooney continues to miss out with a thigh injury.

There is a new partnership at centre-half, with Eric Bailly and Chris Smalling - captaining the side this afternoon - back in the fold, as Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo are made to start among the substitutes.

The other change sees Marouane Fellaini join Paul Pogba and Ander Herrera in the middle of the field, with Michael Carrick ruled out with an illness.

For visiting Boro, manager Aitor Karanka makes five changes to the side that suffered a 1-0 defeat at Burnley last time out as he looks to arrest a run of form that has seen his side lose three of their last four games.

Two of those alterations come in defence, with Bernardo making his Premier League debut and George Friend earning a recall as Fabio drops to the bench and Antonio Barragan misses out.

Grant Leadbitter comes in for Adam Clayton to make his first start of the season, while there are two new faces up front as Adama Traore and Stewart Downing and are preferred to Cristhian Stuani and Gaston Ramirez.

Manchester United: De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Smalling, Blind; Herrera, Fellaini, Pogba; Martial, Ibrahimovic, Mkhitaryan
Subs: Romero, Jones, Rojo, Lingard, Mata, Schweinsteiger, Rashford

Middlesbrough: Valdes; Chambers, Bernardo, Gibson, Friend; Leadbitter, Forshaw, De Roon; Traore, Downing, Negredo
Subs: Guzan, Fabio, Ayala, Clayton, Stuani, Ramirez, Rhodes

Keep up with all of the action from Old Trafford this afternoon with Sports Mole's live text commentary here.

Written by
Neil Wilkes