Manchester United went into the first international break of 2026-27 after salvaging a late point at Fulham, leaving them on five points from their opening five league matches. Michael Carrick admitted the margins have not gone their way, but insisted the signs are encouraging.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been pretty fine \u00admargins [so far this season] that have flipped it [the wrong way],\u201d Carrick told reporters at Craven Cottage. \u201cI know we can do better \u2026 we need to do better at certain things. But I\u2019m not despondent and down because we\u2019re showing some good signs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention now turns to the visit of Tottenham Hotspur to Old Trafford on Saturday, although Carrick\u2019s selection plans have been complicated by a growing injury list. Several players either returned early from international duty or are still being managed carefully, leaving United with uncertainty in multiple areas of the pitch.<\/p>\n
Matthijs de Ligt remains out with a back problem, while Manuel Ugarte is also unavailable because of a knee issue. Amad Diallo, absent since pre-season, is still a doubt with an ankle problem, though he remains the most likely of that group to have a chance of involvement.<\/p>\n
Kobbie Mainoo and Marcus Rashford both withdrew from England duty after picking up injuries against Fulham and are expected back in contention, but only as doubts until further updates arrive later this week. Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko is in a similar position after pulling out of Slovenia\u2019s squad, with the striker saying he is \u201cgetting there\u201d as he recovers from a shin problem.<\/p>\n
Patrick Dorgu and Noussair Mazraoui are also uncertain after injury setbacks for Denmark and Morocco respectively. In goal, if Karl Darlow and Tom Heaton do not recover in time, Dermot Mee could again be asked to sit on the bench as backup to Senne Lammens.<\/p>\n
The situation could also open the door for Carlos Baleba, who arrived injured from Brighton & Hove Albion and has spent his early weeks in Manchester building fitness. If Mainoo is unavailable, he could make his debut. Further forward, Rashford\u2019s absence could lead to Matheus Cunha moving left, Bryan Mbeumo through the middle, and a possible first Premier League start for Shea Lacey on the right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United return to league action with Carrick managing fresh doubts, recovery cases and possible changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,187],"tags":[1836,242,180],"class_list":["post-21711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21711","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=21711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}