Manchester United will finish Premier League Gameweek 32 with a home match against Leeds United on Monday, but Kobbie Mainoo will not feature. The Englishman\u2019s setback comes just hours after manager Michael Carrick confirmed that Mainoo is inching closer to signing a new contract at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
Manuel Ugarte has been handed the starting role in central midfield despite having fallen out of favor recently at Old Trafford. He will occupy the position vacated by Mainoo and line up alongside Casemiro in the middle of the park. Casemiro recently urged faith in Mainoo, saying the youngster has the ability to be “one of the best eights” for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Captain Bruno Fernandes will occupy his customary No. 10 role, providing the attacking centre-midfield presence behind the forwards. The selection leaves Manchester United with a three-man central unit of Ugarte, Casemiro and Fernandes for the rivalry fixture at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
The absence of Mainoo removes a developing option from the manager\u2019s midfield choices for the match, while Carrick\u2019s contract update earlier in the day suggested negotiations are progressing. The club\u2019s announced lineup shifts the immediate midfield responsibility to Ugarte and Casemiro, with Fernandes set to maintain his attacking midfield duties.<\/p>\n
All details in this report are drawn from the club\u2019s statements and the manager\u2019s confirmation earlier on the day of the game. The team will take to the pitch at Old Trafford in the closing match of Gameweek 32 with Ugarte starting in place of Mainoo and Fernandes at No. 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mainoo absent for Manchester United v Leeds at Old Trafford; Ugarte starts with Casemiro and Bruno..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1574,1083,969],"tags":[342,939,1578],"class_list":["post-11704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gameweek-32","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-casemiro","tag-midfield-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}