Ruben Amorim confirmed Lisandro Mart\u00ednez is approaching fitness and could return after more than nine months out, but the coach dismissed the idea of moving him into midfield at present. Mart\u00ednez trained with Argentina during the November internationals, a period Amorim said has helped his recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel Licha is becoming close to being able to play,\u201d Amorim said ahead of Monday\u2019s Premier League clash with Everton. \u201cWe need to be careful, he is going to struggle in the first minutes but he is clearly in a better position than he was two weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Mart\u00ednez does feature, he is expected to slot in on the left side of central defence. The 27-year-old has experience playing further forward; he made 22 appearances for Ajax as a defensive midfielder, though he was primarily used as a centre back. At Old Trafford, Mart\u00ednez has made 86 appearances in central defence and has slotted in at left back on four occasions.<\/p>\n
Amorim was asked whether Mart\u00ednez might be used to steady a midfield that has struggled, but the coach made his position clear. \u201c[Mart\u00ednez is] a smart, intelligent football player [who] can play in a lot of positions but it is not the right position for him,\u201d Amorim said. \u201cHe needs more time to work there and he is not working there, in an emergency he can play but I am not thinking about that.<\/p>\n
Defensive injuries remain a concern. Amorim confirmed Harry Maguire will miss the Everton match after picking up a knock in training.<\/p>\n
Amorim also provided an update on Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko, saying the forward will be out for a \u201cfew weeks\u201d after sustaining a knee issue against Tottenham Hotspur. \u201cHe is going to recover. He is doing the recovery and he is feeling better so we expect in a few weeks to have him back. I think it is going to be more or less he will be back at the same time as Amad [Diallo] and [Bryan] Mbeumo leave for AFCON.\u201d \u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s timeline has been set for three to five weeks, The Athletic report.<\/p>\n
Stats per Transfermarkt:<\/p>\n
Centre Back: 225
Defensive Midfield: 22
Left Back: 16
Right Back: 3<\/p>\n
Upcoming Premier League fixtures include Everton on Monday, Nov. 24, Crystal Palace on Sunday, Nov. 30, West Ham on Thursday, Dec. 4, and Wolves on Monday, Dec. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim: Lisandro Mart\u00ednez is close to returning but an emergency midfield switch is ruled out ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,172],"tags":[538,1021,260],"class_list":["post-4635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-amad-diallo","tag-amorim","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635","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=4635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}