Manchester United ended their pre-season on a sour note against fierce rivals Liverpool as they lost 0-3 to a nearly 76k crowd in North Carolina.
The team created plenty of chances so the scoreline didn’t really reflect the general trend of the game but the lack of clinical skill will worry Erik ten Hag.
What will worry him more, however, is the injury situation which seems to get worse with every game. What started with Rasmus Hojlund and Leny Yoro has snowballed into a much more serious issue.
United haven’t come unscathed in any game in the USA so far and this one vs Liverpool was no different.
Erik ten Hag’s injury update
After the game, Ten Hag spoke to the club website and gave an injury update on five players, four of whom were forced off during the game and one who was left out altogether.
Harry Maguire was left out altogether after recently returning from injury and the news on his front can be taken as cautiously optimistic at best.
Ten Hag said: “Pre-season is always tough. But, yeah, Harry Maguire, as a precaution, we leave him out. And we had, of course, some injuries, but that is part of club football. We have to develop our team and make some good progression.”
The news was much worse for the four subbed off vs Liverpool. Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Victor Lindelof, and Jonny Evans started the game but came off for various reasons.
On Evans, Ten Hag stated that he was “ill” so he had to be withdrawn at half-time. Lindelof’s substitution was a “precaution” as the Swede has recently returned from injury too.
Wan-Bissaka was attended to by the United medical team on the pitch after an apparent issue with about 10 minutes from full-time but he walked off the pitch unattended so there’s hope there.
The worst one was Will Fish, who came on at half-time after Lindelof and Evans were substituted but had to come off due to what Ten Hag described as an “impact injury”.
Fish was in a collision with Liverpool’s Harvey Blair and came off worse and Ten Hag refused to divulge more details saying, “The assessment, of course, with Will Fish is it’s an impact injury. We have to see what has gone on.”
Under huge scrutiny
It can be argued that even more than the manager, the medical department at the club is under huge scrutiny this season.
Ten Hag has already said that there has been an overhaul of the medical team and the results will start showing soon.
However, so far, this pre-season has been even worse than the last one, where Kobbie Mainoo and Amad were the only major absentees, and even those two weren’t “major” at the time.
This year, United have already lost a multitude of players, with many others carrying knocks that have the potential to become something severe if risked.
Ten Hag has been extremely cautious about fielding players with even the slightest issues so far which should go a long way towards minimising risks. With every game, the need for more squad depth is becoming clearer.
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