Rio Ferdinand tells Sir Jim Ratcliffe FIVE areas that must change to stop Man United’s injuries

Rio Ferdinand has explained the five areas that must be changed to stop Manchester United’s horrid injury crisis at Old Trafford under Erik ten Hag.

This season, Erik ten Hag and his Manchester United squad have been hit by a horrible injury crisis. The club has recorded over sixty cases of injury since the start of the season.

This includes the long-term absences of players such as Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martínez, Tyrell Malacia, Harry Maguire, and Casemiro—all of whom have played pivotal roles under the Dutchman during his two years in charge at Old Trafford.

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United suffered a dismal 4-0 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday night. The back four consisted of two left-backs, midfielder Casemiro and 36-year-old Jonny Evans.

Speaking before the game, even Ten Hag admitted that in his 10 years of management, he had never had to deal with a crisis like this.

What Ten Hag said

“For over 10 years I am managing, I never had this experience,” Ten Hag said last week.

“So huge, so many injury issues, so I trust all my experience, it can happen once in 10 years. Hopefully, now I have to wait another 10 to have so many injuries to deal with.”

Rio Ferdinand’s advice

If Manchester United wants to avoid this potential problem in the future, Rio Ferdinand has explained what must be investigated, listing five things that Sir Jim Ratcliffe would do well to note down.

“I think you can say maybe a bit of training, but I just think sometimes it’s bad luck as well,” he said on his Vibe with FIVE podcast before the Selhurst Park defeat. 

“You’ve got to look at the training, the nutrition, the loads that they put through the training sessions, that’s got to be looked at.

“But also sometimes it’s down to bad luck as well. I would definitely be looking and analysing through data – all those areas. Nutrition, the loads through training, the amount of training, the time in training and also game time and game load.

“Is [Erik ten Hag] putting too much on players through too many games? I don’t know, it’s difficult. That’s the job of INEOS, to go in there and to check out that data and to find out because it has been a problem. We can’t have this repeated next season.”