Man United's Rashford facing lengthy lay off with back injury

LIVERPOOL, England, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford faces a lengthy lay off after his manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer confirmed on Sunday he had suffered a stress fracture.

"He’s suffered a bad injury," said Solskjaer. "Yeah it’s a stress fracture, it happened against Wolves. It’s not happened before, it happened there and then.

"He’ll be out for a while. He won’t be back until after the mid-season break. Normally six weeks to heal, but I’m not a doctor, and then he needs rehab after that probably," he told Sky Sports.

"We're always looking at chances to improve the squad - with Marcus out for a while we have to look at it closely. We might look at some short-term deals. We are looking at numbers," he added.

As well as being a set-back to a United squad short of attacking options, the loss of Rashford is a blow to England manager Gareth Southgate whose main striker Harry Kane is also sidelined through injury.

United are fifth in the Premier League, 30 points adrift of Liverpool after a 2-0 defeat to the leaders at Anfield on Sunday.

(Reporting by Simon Evans Editing by Toby Davis)