The focus returns to club action as the international break ends and for Manchester United, that begins with a trip to the South Coast.
Newly-promoted Southampton are the next team to challenge Erik ten Hag in a league campaign that is already threatening to derail.
Just one win from the first three league games has left Manchester United fighting from underneath for that all-important Champions League qualification.
Ten Hag can use all the help and luck he can get to get a positive result for this one so he’d be delighted to have received a triple squad boost for this game.
Manchester United triple boost
The current football schedule is unforgiving and only going to get much more difficult when the Club World Cup gets added to it.
The international break, particularly for South American players, is an absolutely brutal time as they play two games within a week and then travel long distances.
For some context, the likes of Manuel Ugarte and Lisandro Martinez played for the nation in Colombia and Venezuela on the night of September 10 and need to be ready for United’s lunchtime kickoff on September 14.
The game fatigue is secondary in that case because the travel fatigue alone will take the wind out of the player.
As such, Ten Hag was gifted a triple boost, as of all the players participating in games on September 10, three important stars saw zero minutes of action.
Harry Maguire, Kobbie Mainoo, and Alejandro Garnacho were in the squad but didn’t come off the bench so their last game before the Southampton fixture will have been on September 7 (England) and September 6 (Argentina) respectively.
Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho are undisputed starters so that’s huge news for United, while Maguire could start because the fourth crucial player involved in September 10 games, Lisandro Martinez, could have his minutes managed.
A must-win game
It might read like an exaggeration to say this about the fourth league game of the season when three competitions haven’t even begun, but Southampton away is a must-win game.
Erik ten Hag’s job security question was always going to pop up again due to the tense circumstances his extension was signed but it wasn’t expected that it would happen so soon.
Two losses, both deserved, have left United looking up in the league table already in a season where they can’t afford to miss out on the Champions League qualification.
Southampton will be a banana skin in their own backyard, but these are precisely the kinds of games United have mark three points against if they are to stand a chance of finishing in the top four.
Some much-needed rest for their key players in the international break will help as the time for excuses and mitigating factors withers away.
Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox
