Odion Ighalo is not attending Manchester United’s training camp in Spain this weekend, because the club fears travel restrictions relating to the coronavirus outbreak will prevent him returning to England.

The 30-year-old striker touched down in Manchester last weekend, following his unexpected deadline-day loan switch from Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua. The coronavirus has claimed 722 lives in China, and restrictions could be placed on travellers who have been in the country within the past two weeks.

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“Odion will stay in Manchester, because he arrived from China in the last 14 days,” United’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, told MUTV. “Because of the situation in China, we’re not sure if he’d be allowed back into England if he leaves the country again. He’s staying here working with a personal coach, on an individual programme, and his family then can settle in England as well. That’s a plus. Of course he might have liked to have come with the players and get to know them, but with the risk [of border restrictions tightening], we don’t want to take that.”

The club has described the decision on Ighalo as a “precautionary measure”. Solskjær also confirmed the injured Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford would not travel. The rest of the United squad, including Scott McTominay and Axel Tuanzebe, will stay in Marbella for their warm-weather training camp. “Scotty has done better in his recovery than we thought, so we will take him with us,” Solskjær said. “Hopefully he can join in the training sessions and Axel as well, he’ll join in, so that’s two positives and it’s a good chance for them to use this time with the players.”

United will next be in action on Monday 17 February, when they travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, before taking on Club Brugge away in the opening leg of their Europa League last-32 fixture.

Solskjær added: “We want to get results. Towards the end, before this break, we played OK and didn’t concede too many goals. But we didn’t create chances and missed that little bit of spark – maybe because of the mental tiredness. Physically, they did really well in every aspect of the games but mentally, now, we kick on.”