Manchester United are set to welcome Bryan Mbeumo back for next Saturday\u2019s derby at Old Trafford after Cameroon\u2019s 2\u20130 quarterfinal defeat to Morocco in the Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n
The setback for Cameroon means United regain the services of their summer signing. Mbeumo has not featured since the 4\u20134 draw with Bournemouth in mid-December yet still leads the squad for goals, xG, shots on target and touches in the penalty area. He also serves as one of the team\u2019s chief creators and routinely hauls the gravity of the squad forward with his repeated surges upfield.<\/p>\n
United have shuttled through interim solutions while Mbeumo has been away. Darren Fletcher was an emergency interim option, but the club could have another caretaker in place by the time the forward returns. Ole Gunnar Solskj\u00e6r and Michael Carrick are the two leading contenders and both will surely be grateful to have Mbeumo back available.<\/p>\n
The Red Devils managed just one win in their first five games without their top scorer, failing to beat three sides currently slumped among the Premier League\u2019s bottom five. Patrick Dorgu was asked into a more attacking role and scored his first goal for the club while also providing two assists. Matheus Cunha doubled his season tally with strikes against Aston Villa and Leeds United, but neither result produced victories.<\/p>\n
Brighton & Hove Albion boss Fabian H\u00fcrzeler was succinct in his assessment of the \u00a365 million ($87.2 million) move from Brentford: “Money well invested.”<\/p>\n
United will not be at full strength in other respects. Noussair Mazraoui, who played the full 90 minutes of Morocco\u2019s 2\u20130 win over Cameroon, will be unavailable until the trip to Arsenal\u2019s Emirates Stadium on Sunday, Jan. 25. Morocco denied Cameroon a single shot on target in that game, although Mbeumo did have a strong penalty appeal waved away.<\/p>\n
Amad Diallo remains involved in the tournament as the third and final Manchester United player at AFCON. Only Morocco\u2019s Real Madrid forward Brahim D\u00edaz has outscored Ivory Coast\u2019s versatile wideman this winter, and D\u00edaz will face Mohamed Salah\u2019s Egypt in Saturday\u2019s last quarterfinal with the chance to extend his three-goal tally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bryan Mbeumo is set to be available for next Saturday’s Manchester derby after Cameroon’s AFCON loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1211,538,260],"class_list":["post-5915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-amad-diallo","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5915","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=5915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}