When an injured Lisandro Martinez still linked up with the
Argentina squad in September, the word from
Manchester United was it would be beneficial for him to be surrounded by his compatriots. A penny for Sir Alex Ferguson’s thoughts. Paul Scholes was omitted from an
England squad on the Friday due to an upcoming hernia operation and played for United on the Monday against Middlesbrough. If Ferguson was the manager, Argentina nor Martinez would have dared ask the question. Martinez returned from South America, played twice and United lost both games against Brighton and Bayern Munich, conceding seven goals. Martinez underwent corrective surgery on a metatarsal fracture and did not play again until January. Times have changed and United have changed. Not for the better. Clubs should be selfish over a player’s availability yet Martinez, sidelined for six weeks, flew to
Los Angeles a fortnight ago to train with his international teammates. READ MORE: Mount might get the chance to respond to his
Chelsea chant READ MORE: United to assess risk of starting Varane Granted, his second-half introduction at Brentford was enforced. Raphael Varane was substituted as a precaution at the interval and Victor Lindelof sustained a hamstring injury in the second half. Yet this is the problem at United. There have been 53 separate cases of injury or illness that have caused a player to miss a game this season. Martinez returned before the eight-week timescale he was ruled out for with medial collateral ligament damage. Now he is out for another month. Since he first fractured his metatarsal against Sevilla last April, Martinez has started eight club games. The lucklessness of two impact injuries preceded a calf injury on Tuesday. The unwritten rule in sport is impact injuries are rotten luck but muscular strains are avoidable. It has been reported by this correspondent and others that some United players are concerned by the intense training demands of manager Erik ten Hag. Casemiro partly blamed it for a recurrence of the hamstring injury that caused him to miss the FA Cup win over Liverpool. Another player is understood to be playing within himself to avoid injury. Ten Hag brought an assistant coach and an analyst with him from Ajax but not a fitness coach. Louis van Gaal did and so did
Jose Mourinho, a big believer in playing through the pain barrier and dismissive behaviour of certain physiological methods. It seems a grave oversight by Ten Hag when sources at Carrington say he treats recovery days more seriously than any of his predecessors. Marcus Rashford felt Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ran him into the ground and Ten Hag is not negligent. Returning players seldom complete 90 minutes on their return and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Rasmus Hojlund were both substituted in the victory over
Liverpool with United 2-1 down. But Ten Hag has taken needless risks. Starting Christian Eriksen against Championship relegation fodder Reading in the FA Cup last season resulted in an ankle injury, a ten-week absence and an 11th-hour loan move for Marcel Sabitzer. Hojlund was signed in spite of an injury The scrutiny also has to be trailed on club doctor Gary O'Driscoll and Charlie Owen, the United fitness coach since March 2019. Owen replaced Robin Thorpe and Gary Walker and that summer Solskjaer instructed the fitness coaches to ensure the squad was the fittest it had ever been . Before the end of August, the flies started dropping. Luke Shaw,
Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial were sidelined for the long term. O'Driscoll started at United in September after spending 14 years at
Arsenal. Injury crises are nothing new at United. The physio’s room was crammed under Ferguson for the 2006-07 run-in and before
Christmas in 2009 when United fielded a back three of Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick and Ritchie De Laet at Fulham. They lost 3-0. Ferguson hailed the opening of the Toshiba Medical Centre at Carrington in 2012 as “a big signing for us and probably the most important step forward we have taken in a long, long time”. United still started that season with Carrick at centre half away to Everton. The Toshiba Medical Centre has not proven to be a marginal gain Yet United remained competitive, winning the title in 2007 and 2013 and losing it by a point in 2010. Injuries have been rife at other elite clubs and players continue to reel from the backlog of fixtures since the Covid-19 pandemic. Nations League matches in mid-June 2022 and a senseless winter
World Cup in Qatar have pushed players to the brink. A high-level source at United said earlier in the season Varane had told them “he can’t do it any more”. A depleted Liverpool still won the League Cup final,
Tottenham schooled United at Old Trafford without five regulars and
Manchester City are vying for a second Treble, having coped without Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland for prolonged periods. Ten Hag’s United have crumbled. A penny for Ferguson’s thoughts.