Goalkeeper David de Gea has become the latest member of the Manchester United squad to pick up an injury. The total number of injured players at Old Trafford is now fourteen as De Gea joins the likes of Wayne Rooney, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Ashley Young and Luke Shaw on the sidelines.
Manchester United are a club in crisis and it looks like there is no respite for the Red Devils after their star goalkeeper succumbed to an injury. A humiliating loss to Danish minnows FC Midtjylland was compounded by the news of De Gea suffering a knee injury on Thursday.
This means that Louis van Gaal has now lost 14 members of his squad to various short-term and long-term injuries. This list also includes club captain Wayne Rooney, who has been ruled out for six weeks after suffering a knee ligament injury in Manchester United’s defeat to Sunderland. The other injured United players include Bastian Schweinsteiger, Ashley Young, Luke Shaw, Matteo Darmian, Antonio Valencia, Marouane Fellaini, Marcos Rojo and Phil Jones.
The new faces that the fans have been seeing over the past few weeks will once again be lining up against Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup. While this could be a chance for Memphis Depay to prove his worth as an attacking player, other inclusions in the starting XI will not be as pleasing to the eye as the highly-rated Dutch winger.
Sergio Romero had a good showing against Midtjylland and the fans will be hoping that he can repeat his heroics on Monday. Manager Louis van Gaal too reserved a few words of praise for the Argentine. Speaking after the defeat in Denmark (via the Manchester United official website), he said: “It was not an easy thing for him [Romero] to step in so late against Midtjylland and he has proved once again that he is a very good goalkeeper, as he did at the start of the season.”
Smalling and Blind are expected to keep their centre-back partnership intact in the FA Cup tie. Morgan Schneiderlin and Michael Carrick are expected to occupy the holding role in the midfield with Juan Mata featuring behind the striker. Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial will look to continue their good run this season as right-winger and lone striker respectively.
The main problem for Manchester United will be in the full-back positions where they will have to count on U21 players like Donald Love, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Guillermo Varela to hold the fort.
