Michael Carrick has raised doubts over the availability of two senior defenders ahead of Manchester United\u2019s Wednesday night Premier League visit to Newcastle United, prompting a potential reshuffle at the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re working towards it,\u201d Carrick told reporters on the health of Maguire and Shaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t feeling too good [against Crystal Palace]. We\u2019ve still got a little bit of time to the game and we will just have to see how they feel. So we\u2019ll obviously give them every chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t injury, it\u2019s just both of them weren’t feeling too good. It\u2019s one of those things really. But we\u2019ll just have to see how they are [the rest of Tuesday] and [Wednesday] morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those comments leave United without three established defensive options. Matthijs de Ligt has been sidelined since November and Patrick Dorgu is not expected back until late March or early April. That means Diogo Dalot is the only usual defensive starter definitely available for the trip. Senne Lammens will continue in goal, but the unit in front of him could look very different.<\/p>\n
If Maguire cannot recover, Carrick could turn to a young centre-back pairing. Leny Yoro, who has deputised for Mart\u00ednez in recent matches, and Ayden Heaven are both prospects aged 20 and 19 respectively, and both are described as raw.<\/p>\n
At left-back, the obvious replacement if Luke Shaw is absent is Noussair Mazraoui. The Morocco international can operate on either flank and filled in at left against Crystal Palace. Dalot has been shifted from the right in the past to accommodate Mazraoui. Ruben Amorim was in charge the last time Mazraoui started a game for United. Mazraoui also missed part of the festive period due to the Africa Cup of Nations and is generally considered behind Shaw and Dalot in the fullback pecking order.<\/p>\n
Carrick\u2019s injury updates complicate selection for a fixture where defensive cohesion will matter. United head to Newcastle having climbed into the top three after the weekend, leapfrogging Aston Villa thanks to six wins from seven matches since Carrick became interim manager in January. The club spent the majority of 2024\u201325 in the table\u2019s bottom half and last occupied third in May 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick confirms doubts over Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw ahead of Newcastle defensive choices. today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1348,969],"tags":[181,1305,1393],"class_list":["post-7382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-manchester-united-news","category-premier-league","tag-ayden-heaven","tag-bench-selection","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382","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=7382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}