 |
| Rasmus Hojlund of Manchester United celebrates scoring their first goal during the pre-season friendly match between Manchester United and Arsenal at SoFi Stadium on July 27, 2024 in Inglewood, California. |
Manchester United suffered a double injury blow in pre-season with Leny Yoro and Rasmus Hojlund limping off in a friendly defeat to Arsenal.
The Red Devils were beaten 2-1 by their Premier League rivals in Los Angeles overnight.
Hojlund had given Man United the lead after just 10 minutes after racing through to meet a Marcus Rashford through ball, before slotting home through goalkeeper Karl Hein’s legs.
Just five minutes later, however, he was limping off.
United’s new £52million signing Yoro was also a first half casualty as he went down off the ball and was straight away taken off.
“We have to wait 24 hours and then we will hopefully know more,” Ten Hag told MUTV.
“We were very careful, especially with Leny. It is disappointing he had to come off but let’s be positive and see what comes out.”
Gabriel Jesus went on to score an equaliser for Arsenal after 25 minutes, before Gabriel Martinelli got the winner nine minutes from time.
The two teams did go on to play a pre-arranged shootout, with Jadon Sancho netting the winning spot-kick in a 4-3 penalties triumph.
The injuries will leave a bitter taste in the mouth for manager Ten Hag, who saw the 2023/24 season wrecked by injuries.
man United suffered 45 separate injury cases last season, the most ever recorded over the last 20 years.
There were 21 different players who missed a combined 1,620 days.
“That’s really too much. We are not the only team that struggled with injuries, other clubs had the same,” he told the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad in July.
“Last season we had constant injuries for players in the same positions, all at the back. At one point we had almost no defenders available.
“When we started here, United hadn’t won a trophy for six years and it really wasn’t because they didn’t have good managers here. It does say something about the composition and quality of the player group. I knew that when I started, of course, but they were players with long-term contracts.
“We were and still are in that process [of building]. If you compare our squad with other top clubs in the Premier League, we are certainly a bit less in terms of depth. That is exactly why we found it so difficult to deal with those injuries.”
Losing Yoro and Hojlund to injury is not the ideal preparation for the 2024/25 campaign.
They face Real Betis on Thursday, before Liverpool next Sunday.
United then play rivals Man City in the Community Shield on August 10, after beating them in May’s FA Cup final.
Their first Premier League game of the season is Fulham at home on August 16.
Want to know more about livetscore check out our article
Share this content:
