Matthijs de Ligt has confirmed he underwent surgery on a back problem that ended his 2025\u201326 season. Manchester United described the procedure as “successful” and the club statement added the defender is “expected to return for United in the early stages of the 2026\u201327 season.” <\/p>\n
De Ligt revealed he had fought to return before the decision to operate. “Since November I have done everything, pushing myself in every session and exploring every option, to get back to doing what I love, playing football,” he told the club\u2019s official website. “I am grateful to everyone who has supported me throughout a difficult period in my career. I remain as determined as ever to represent Manchester United and play in front of our incredible supporters as soon as possible.” <\/p>\n
The issue emerged after a strong run of form. De Ligt played every minute of United\u2019s first 13 Premier League fixtures and had established himself on the right-hand side of Amorim\u2019s favoured back-three. He was voted Manchester United\u2019s player of the month for November and had hoped to carry that form through the campaign. “Hopefully I can continue like this and, in the end, it\u2019s all about the end of the season,” he said at the time. <\/p>\n
The surgery follows months of management of a new area of concern for the centre back. De Ligt has previously missed time with foot, knee, calf, groin, shoulder, ankle and thigh problems as well as routine illness, but a back complaint had not been part of his injury history until this season. <\/p>\n
He was pictured back in individual training at the end of April, raising faint hopes of a late return, but the operation now rules him out of selection for the summer tournament in North America. United\u2019s timeline points to availability at the start of 2026\u201327, and the defender has pledged to return determined to represent the club and its supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
De Ligt confirms season-ending back surgery; club says he is expected back early in 2026-27 season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,172],"tags":[1021,1683,1684],"class_list":["post-13835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-amorim","tag-back-injury","tag-season-ending-surgery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835","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=13835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}