Manchester United have adjusted their approach to Lisandro Mart\u00ednez\u2019s recovery after a training setback, The Daily Mail reports. The latest problem has sent Mart\u00ednez back to the sidelines and is expected to extend his absence. While the issue is not believed to be serious, the defender\u2019s time out has grown from less than a week to more than one month.<\/p>\n
The club has reevaluated treatment and return-to-play plans to avoid a repeat of the prolonged absence suffered by Matthijs de Ligt. De Ligt was struck down by a back problem in November and, although initially expected back the following month, he has now missed 18 consecutive games. Sunday\u2019s meeting with Aston Villa will be the 18th consecutive game he has missed as his spell on the sidelines tips over four months.<\/p>\n
At this stage of the season, United cannot afford further long-term losses among their central defenders, particularly after defeat to Newcastle United tightened the race for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s fixture list in the coming weeks underlines the challenge: Aston Villa (H) on March 15, Bournemouth (A) on March 20, Leeds (H) on April 13, Chelsea (A) on April 18 and Brentford (H) on April 27.<\/p>\n
Tactically, the shift away from Ruben Amorim\u2019s three-at-the-back approach has given some relief to the centre-back group because Carrick\u2019s 4-2-3-1 formation fields two centre backs at a time. Without both De Ligt and Mart\u00ednez, squad options are stretched. Harry Maguire has been partnered with 20-year-old Leny Yoro, while depth beyond them is limited.<\/p>\n
Nineteen-year-old Ayden Heaven has been the primary deputy. The former Arsenal youngster has had moments in the first team, but examples of inexperience emerged towards the end of Amorim\u2019s reign. Heaven has made three appearances under Carrick, totaling eight minutes of action since the change in management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United alter Lisandro Mart\u00ednez recovery plan after training setback as defensive options thin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1348,172],"tags":[1021,181,1393],"class_list":["post-8191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united-news","category-epl","tag-amorim","tag-ayden-heaven","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191","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=8191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}