Early team news has dropped ahead of Manchester United’s second Premier League clash away at Brentford. And unfortunately, some of the problems which were there for the Brighton clash have not changed.
According to Manchester United’s official website, both Anthony Martial and Victor Lindelof have not yet recovered from their injuries and will miss the clash.
Martial’s injury-enforced absence had led to Erik ten Hag having to shuffle his pack and he ended up choosing Christian Eriksen to play the false nine role.
The experiment did not work as the Red Devils fell two goals down at the end of the first half. Cristiano Ronaldo was introduced early in the second half but that did not change United’s fortunes.
It remains to be seen how the Dutch boss lines up for the clash against the Bees on Saturday.
When quizzed about Lindelof and Martial’s chances of playing this weekend, the new boss said, “It’s still the same,” indicating that United will once again need to come up with a solution.
Behind-closed-doors friendly helped
The Red Devils played their second behind-closed-doors friendly this month, this time against Halifax Town.
Anthony Martial and Victor Lindelöf have both been ruled out of tomorrow’s clash with Brentford 🩹 pic.twitter.com/Ian07wkKhR
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) August 12, 2022
And the Dutch boss is pleased because these encounters have helped members of his squad, who are short on fitness, to get some valuable minutes under their belt.
“I don’t like them being behind closed doors but it was behind and we needed all the players to get the minutes in the legs, Of course it’s best to get that in the league, but we have a squad and we need the squad,” Ten Hag opined.
Another interesting point made by the former Ajax boss was the fact that he wants two players for each position, something that is clearly lacking in the current squad.
Depth will be of paramount importance as the Old Trafford outfit contend with four competitions as well as the fixture pile-up caused due to the Qatar World Cup.
“We need double positions and of course they can also show their capabilities to me and to the team, and get to the right fitness levels and work hard. That’s the most important thing.”
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