Man United take on Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday and Ralf Rangnick is set to miss three first-team players when the Saints come to Old Trafford.
The first and obvious miss is Fred who is still in isolation after testing positive for COVID but apart from him, Nemanja Matic is also ruled out with a shin injury.
Eric Bailly is the third player who is unavailable after he picked up an ankle injury while on international duty. Apart from these three players, there are no other absentees as Alex Telles has returned to training after testing negative.
The manager said in his press conference: “Alex resumed training yesterday. He might be available, I’ll have to speak to him after training today about how he feels because he was out for one and a half, almost two weeks but he took part in training yesterday.
“The three players who will not be available tomorrow are still Eric Bailly, Fred, obviously because he was still testing positive, and Nemanja Matic. He has some problems with his shin.
Paul Pogba scores his first Manchester United goal since January 2021 ⚡ pic.twitter.com/evLJPdvuNu
— B/R Football (@brfootball) February 8, 2022
“He has been having these problems for the last couple of days, almost a week. He was still available, but he couldn’t train for the last two training sessions and he also won’t be training today. Those are the three players that are not available for the game tomorrow.”
A midfield mess for Man United on Saturday?
Paul Pogba was not particularly influential against Burnley and given how the Saints played against Tottenham, Ralf Rangnick surely had plans to use Nemanja Matic alongside Scott McTominay in central midfield.
Now the manager will have to scrap that strategy since both Fred and Matic are missing and this gives Paul Pogba another chance to prove his worth.
The Saints ran riot against Spurs and if they can maintain the same intensity on Saturday then Pogba will definitely be chasing shadows. There’s no way the likes of Pogba and Fernandes can keep a check on James Ward Prowse and this issue could eventually be the undoing of Man United.
United cannot afford to drop any more points if they wish to play in the Champions League next season but if Ralf Rangnick cannot play a midfield double pivot then we don’t see them dominating and countering Hassenhuttl’s likely 4-2-2-2 system.
