17 Manchester United players to miss Rúben Amorim’s first training session as full details explained

Rúben Amorim will be without 17 Manchester United stars as he takes on his first training session as the club’s new head coach.

Rúben Amorim is set to lead his first training session as Manchester United’s head coach on Monday, stepping into what is undoubtedly the biggest challenge of his managerial career so far.

The 39-year-old former Portugal international was appointed as Erik ten Hag’s replacement after the Dutchman was sacked, with United languishing in 14th place in the Premier League and 21st in their Europa League group.

Read More: “At all costs…” – Zlatan Ibrahimovic responds to AC Milan rumours surrounding Manchester United star

During the interim period, Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had been serving as Ten Hag’s assistant, took charge of the team for four matches. However, with Amorim unable to leave his role at Sporting CP until mid-November, Van Nistelrooy was relieved of his duties once the new coach officially took over.

Amorim, whose UK work visa is being processed, has met some squad members. However, his first session will be missing 17 players due to international duty or injuries.

International duty

Manchester United have 13 players currently competing for their respective national sides in what is the final international break until March.

André Onana and Altay Bayındır are with Cameroon and Turkey, respectively, meaning Tom Heaton will be the only senior goalkeeper Amorim has available as he trains his new squad.

Alejandro Garnacho is away with Argentina, while his South American compatriot Manuel Ugarte is competing with Uruguay.

The club also have three duos away from United for their respective international teams. Matthijs de Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee are with the Netherlands, Rasmus Højlund and Christian Eriksen are with Denmark, and Diogo Dalot and Bruno Fernandes competing with Portugal.

Victor Lindelöf, as national team captain, is with Sweden, while in-form Noussair Mazraoui continues his ventures with Morroco, and Academy forward James Scanlon competes for Gibraltar.

Further injury issues

Aside from the 13 players currently away on international adventures, Amorim has four more who will likely miss his first training session at Carrington on Monday morning.

Lisandro Martínez had to pull out of international duty with Argentina after they found an injury in his back.

“We didn’t expect the case of Lisandro,” Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni explained when asked why Martínez had flown back to Manchester.

“We saw that he had suffered a blow to his back, but apparently, he had no problem, just pain. When he arrived here, the pain increased a bit, he underwent tests and is not fit to be here.”

Beyond this, there is no update on Harry Maguire‘s fitness after he was ruled out through injury in October, while Dan Gore and Toby Collyer remain in rehabilitation.

Kobbie Mainoo is also another player whose fitness is still unconfirmed after a hamstring injury last month, but he was seen doing conditioning work with others such as Mason Mount and Leny Yoro, who are back in first-team training following spells on the sidelines.

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 released every Wednesday at 6 pm (BST) on the United View YouTube channel.