Wayne Rooney will not be allowed to leave Manchester United before the end of the current season.

Rooney has been the subject of interest from clubs in China's Super League.

After Morgan Schneiderlin was sold to Everton and Memphis Depay to Lyon, Mourinho does not want his squad to be further depleted, especially as United are still competing in four competitions.

Asked if the captain will still be at the club at the campaign’s close, Mourinho said: “Yeah. We don’t have players in, we don’t have players out, we lost two players from the squad. You can say Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin did not play a lot, but the reality is they played some matches, and when they did, others didn’t, and when they played, others were rested. When Schneiderlin played, it meant [Paul] Pogba, [Michael] Carrick or [Ander] Herrera didn’t.

“You lose players and sometimes it does not look important because they were not first-choice players, but in the end they’re important if someone is going to have a difficult season. I hope that’s us and we’re in the cup competitions.

“We have the Manchester City match postponed [because of the EFL Cup final], we have the Blackburn Rovers match [in the FA Cup] and if we win we will have another match to be postponed. We are in the Europa League with more matches, so our situation is really difficult.”