Kobbie Mainoo was omitted from Manchester United’s matchday squad to face Aston Villa after picking up an injury, the club confirmed.<\/p>\n
Mainoo’s absence carries both immediate and symbolic weight. He is the sole remaining academy graduate in Amorim’s senior squad following the summer departures of Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho. United have maintained a run of more than 88 years with at least one academy graduate in matchday squads, and that sequence has been a persistent consideration for the manager.<\/p>\n
Amorim has openly admitted his fear of being the manager who breaks the famous record. The current season already included a scare when Mainoo sustained an injury in November. On that occasion Amorim turned to academy midfielder Jack Fletcher to preserve the run, and Fletcher returns to the squad once again for the meeting with Aston Villa.<\/p>\n
There are other young figures included among the substitutes. Centre back Tyler Fredricson is named on the bench for a second successive game as he aims to build on three senior appearances for the club. Midfielder Shea Lacey, who has been an unused substitute on previous occasions, will hope to make his debut at the fifth time of asking this season.<\/p>\n
Bendito Mantato, a versatile option comfortable as a wing back on either side, is also in the squad to provide cover while Noussair Mazraoui and Amad Diallo are away at the Africa Cup of Nations alongside forward Bryan Mbeumo.<\/p>\n
Starting XI: Lammens; Yoro, Heaven, Shaw; Dalot, Ugarte, Fernandes, Dorgu; Cunha, Mount, \u0160e\u0161ko.<\/p>\n
Bench: Bay\u0131nd\u0131r, Heaton, Fredricson, Malacia, Mantato, Mart\u00ednez, Fletcher, Lacey, Zirkzee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mainoo missed the squad through injury; United rely on academy replacements protect the 88-year run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,969],"tags":[1021,1305,1337],"class_list":["post-5280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-amorim","tag-bench-selection","tag-jack-fletcher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280","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=5280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}