Manchester United have already started their preseason work, with Michel Carrick taking charge of his first summer in the dugout. Across a series of friendlies in northern Europe, fringe players and academy prospects alike are trying to make their case for the months ahead.<\/p>\n
Joshua Zirkzee is among those with the most to prove. His first spell at United has been marked by frustration, even with a winning Premier League debut offering early promise. Since then, the Dutch forward has added only eight more goals, including just two in 2025-26. He featured 26 times in all competitions last season after failing to convince Ruben Amorim or Carrick, and competition from Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo has only increased the pressure on him. A strong run in preseason, particularly against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Milan, could alter the picture.<\/p>\n
Mason Mount faces a different challenge. Injuries have repeatedly interrupted his time at Old Trafford, and he is still yet to reach 30 appearances in any of his three campaigns. Across 72 outings, he has managed seven goals and two assists. The midfielder has shown flashes of his best, but he now needs a healthy preseason to build momentum, especially with added competition from Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans.<\/p>\n
Leny Yoro arrived with a big reputation after United beat Liverpool and Real Madrid to his signing, but his progress has stalled. He has been unable to secure a regular place ahead of Harry Maguire, Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez, and his displays have not fully settled doubts.<\/p>\n
Patrick Dorgu also needs to reassert himself after slipping down the pecking order under Amorim, then finding a new lease of life under Carrick before injury struck. Harry Amass, Toby Collyer and Shea Lacey are in similar situations, each hoping preseason can help define their role in the squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United’s preseason offers key chances for fringe players and academy prospects to impress Carrick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1348],"tags":[1446,944,317],"class_list":["post-17965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united-news","tag-academy","tag-andrey-santos","tag-benjamin-sesko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965","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=17965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}