“We didn’t expect…” – National team boss admits surprise at Man Utd player injury

One national team boss has admitted that they were surprised at one Manchester United player who needed to pull out of international duty.

Manchester United secured three points against Leicester City in the Premier League last weekend in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s final game in charge.

In that match, Lisandro Martínez took a knock to his lower back but was able to get through the 90 minutes, moving to left-back later on in the game.

Since then, it has come out that the Argentine defender has pulled out of international duty after further scans on the issue.

D Sports reports that a larger problem was noticed during those scans, with the defender complaining of ‘discomfort’ and not being able to ‘function normally’ with the issue.

While it doesn’t seem like a long-term issue, his forced withdrawal came to the surprise of Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni.

Scaloni has admitted that he believed there was no issue for the defender, who travelled to meet with the Argentina squad, until he arrival.

Upon his arrival, Martínez’s pain had increased and he underwent further tests which showed that he was ‘not fit’ to be part of the squad.

“We didn’t expect the case of Lisandro,” Scaloni explained, as per Sports Witness.

“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.”

With Ruben Amorim taking charge of his first United game in under two weeks, he will be hoping that Martínez is fit in time to face Ipswich Town.

The new head coach is expected to immediately implement his 3-4-3 formation and so the availability of Martínez as the left sided centre-back seems to be important.

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