‘Hope’ and ‘doubt’ over two key Manchester United players’ availability vs Brighton

Manchester United and Erik ten Hag have different injury concerns as they look to return to Premier League action with a win against Brighton at Old Trafford this weekend.

The international break has perhaps helped The Reds as they look to get several players back to full fitness. Ten Hag has had to deal with several injuries in the last couple of months including the likes of Raphael Varane and Mason Mount.

Rasmus Hojlund was also not available at the start of the season but has since made his debut for the club and appeared from the bench twice for Denmark as they qualified for Euro 2024. He will be expected to start against Brighton.

However, there are two players that have contrasting injury updates at the Old Trafford clash comes closer.

New signing Sofyan Amrabat was pulled out of Morocco duty with an injury, although it was later revealed by manager Walid Regragui that it was simply a precautionary move following his move to United.

It has since been reported by James Ducker of The Telegraph that Ten Hag ‘hopes’ to have his new midfielder available for the weekend despite the precautions.

However, it seems that there is never good news without bad at Old Trafford lately and that comes with injuries too it seems.

The aforementioned article added that there are thought to be doubts over Lisandro Martinez’s availability for the clash. The defender was brought off due to injury against Arsenal but managed to travel with Argentina on international duty.

However, he has not played in either fixture for the World Cup holders and despite having done some training with his international team, he could potentially need more time before a return to the side.

Luckily, Victor Lindelof appears to have recovered well after also coming off at The Emirates and has started both of Sweden’s games in the last week.

That would likely mean that United will line up with Lindelof and Harry Maguire against Roberto De Zerbi’s side. They were the first-choice partnership for most of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tenure but have since become backup players to Martinez and Varane.