More Injury BLOW For Manchester United As Midfielder Is Ruled Out

Manchester United has suffered another injury blow, although not in the first team. Josh Harrop who plays in the midfield for the youth team has been replaced by team-mate Joe Rothwell after injury forced the youngster to withdraw from international duty with England’s Under- 20s.

Harrop was expected to join team-mate Ben Pearson in the Netherlands for an Under-20s tournament with the English youth team where they will face their German counterparts.This injury will deal a serious blow on the youngster who has enjoyed a fine season with the club’s Under- 18s and Under- 21s, although it will not come as a surprise as he was substituted from the team’s last game against Tottenham due to an injury.

While this will not have any direct impact on the first team’s new found form, the rate at which injury strikes at the club is still very disturbing, it seems as if every time the team files out for a match, a player gets injured. The last time Manchester United had it this rough was 2009/10 season, when 7 defenders suffered different kind of injuries at the same time and Sir Alex had to deploy Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher at the centre-back. The Red Devils had to rely on their very prolific striking force to survive those perilous times.

It is still very difficult to really assess the new manager as it will be grossly unfair to score him when he hasn’t really had all his players in full fitness. I would like to see the trio of Ander Herrera, Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher slug it out for a place in the starting line-up, but just when we were receiving the good news of Michael’s recovery, Ander was on his way to the doctor’s after sustaining a fracture to the rib. Now Louis van Gaal had to deploy Antonio Valencia in the middle during the club’s last game against Everton. I would also love to see either of Jonny Evans, Chris Smalling or Phil Jones partner with the rock solid Marcos Rojo, but that’s not to be, at least for now, instead, we have been seeing youngsters, Paddy McNair or Tyler Blacklet fill in the blanks in the interim. To be fair to the youth defenders, they have been sweating it out to do what the powerful combination of Rio Ferdinand and NemajaVidic did over the years, and the least we could do is to encourage them, but for a team like United, this leaves much to be desired.

Let us just hope that with the recovery of Jesse Lingard, Phil Jones and Michael Carrick, the injury ‘epidemic’ will come to an end otherwise it could be De Gea today and Perhaps Louis van Gaal himself next week.