Rúben Amorim has confirmed that one injury return is about to be a huge boost for Manchester United following an update on Matheus Cunha.
Rúben Amorim has had a few injury problems to contend with so far this season, with some of his key players yet to be fully match fit.
Joshua Zirkzee and Noussair Mazraoui, both of whom were important to the Manchester United head coach towards the back end of last season, barely took part in pre-season training, only returning to the squad toward the end of August.
Meanwhile, Mason Mount and Matheus Cunha both missed the Manchester derby last week, with the latter a sore miss following his £62.5 million move from Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer.
Another player who has not been seen in almost seven months is Lisandro Martínez, who suffered a significant knee injury back in February.
Amorim confirms Martínez is close to return
Earlier this week, news broke that Martínez was now expected to return to full fitness by the end of October, with the player being pictured training on grass at Carrington in the last few days.
Speaking on Friday afternoon with the press, Amorim confirmed that Martínez is expected to return soon, dubbing this a “really important” moment for his squad.
“It’s really important [that Martinez is nearing a return],” Amorim said. “When you have that injury, you recover a lot of times very fast, and then there is a boring part where it looks like you don’t go to the next step.
“We miss Licha a lot. We miss the aggression in this moment, how aggressive he is on everything he does, we miss him.
“But he’s always there in every meeting, even in training, he stays there to watch the training. I think we need Licha in this team.”
Martínez return spells bad news for Shaw
While Amorim will be ecstatic to see one of his most loyal lieutenants return to action in the coming month or so, some at United will be worried.
So far this season, Luke Shaw has been deployed as United’s left-sided centre-back, but once Martínez is back, he is expected to retain his position as the club’s first-choice option on that side.
The English defender had a good start to the season but was then heavily criticised for his performance against Man City, leading some to speculate whether he has much of a future at United after many were surprised that he stayed in the summer.
Shaw has previously spoken about how he would prefer to be playing at left wing-back, but would have to compete with Patrick Chinazaekpere Dorgu for the position. Either way, Martínez’s return means Shaw is no longer guaranteed a starting spot in Amorim’s XI.
Make sure to follow UtdDistrict on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to never miss out on any of our Manchester United content. Our podcast, What the Devil?, is streamed live every Thursday at 12:30 pm (BST) on the United View YouTube channel.