Seven key senior players set to miss United States of America pre-season tour | OneFootball

Manchester United have already jetted off on their pre-season tour of the United States of America as they left Manchester yesterday afternoon UK time.

The Red Devils have already played two pre-season games, the first a 1-0 loss to Rosenborg and the second a much better performance in a 2-0 win over Glasgow Rangers.

Erik ten Hag’s side will now compete in three matches versus Arsenal, Real Betis and Liverpool in Los Angeles, San Diego and South Carolina.

The 29 man squad was announced yesterday with a mixture of senior and youth players all taking part.

Interestingly, Steve McClaren will stay behind at Carrington to train some key stars who will not be joining the US tour due to their international commitments this summer at Euro 2024 and Copa America.

Kobbie Mainoo, Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martinez, Alejandro Garnacho, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot, Joshua Zirkzee and Facundo Pellistri will all return to Carrington over the next couple of weeks to begin work with the United coach.

The inability to call on these players will be a serious issue as all of the aforementioned players, with the exception of Pellistri, are crucial members of the first team squad.

It is unclear how much of a role new signing Zirkzee will have but the other five names are arguably all of United’s best players, or they are certainly in the conversation to be.

Moreover, fans in the United States will be incredibly disappointed not to see fan favourites such as Mainoo, Martinez and of course Fernandes.

What’s more, United do not have any more pre-season games after they arrive back from America as they will have the Community Shield against derby rivals Manchester City on the 10th of August. Last August for example they took on RC Lens at Old Trafford and Athletic Bilbao in Dublin in pre-season ties before the first game of the season. This is a luxury they won’t have this year.

Ideally, Ten Hag will want to play his strongest eleven as beating City again at Wembley would be another feather in his cap and a great way to start the season with confidence.

However, it is hard to imagine that any of the players left at Carrington will be able to start or even play much more than 30 minutes of the game.

United’s first three games of the season are a home tie versus Fulham and then two tricky matches, an away day against Brighton before welcoming arch-rivals Liverpool to Old Trafford on the 1st of September.

Whilst the the Community Shield may be unrealistic, Ten Hag will certainly be hoping he can call upon his best players on the opening day of the Premier League, but with only possibly two weeks training and one match before, it is far from ideal.

It is plausible that Dalot and Fernandes will return earlier as they were knocked out of Euro 2024 on the 5th of July, so have already had 20 days off. Zirkzee was knocked out on the 10th of July but he already had a short holiday before being called up as an emergency replacement in the Dutch squad.

Nonetheless, Mainoo, Shaw, Garnacho and Martinez all reached the finals of their respective tournaments so did not leave international duty until the 15th of July. Therefore, United fans will be unlikely to see any of these players return to Carrington until the first week of August at the earliest.

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