Manchester United are currently on international break having posted the club’s worst start to a season since 1992-93. Having taken just five points from the first four games, the break certainly comes at the right time for a side that must try and get things right before they take on a top four contending Leicester City side at home in eight days time on Sept 14.
In the meantime, here are some of the news items trending in the United community today. We start with an item on Daniel James, who has certainly been United’s best player who’s not a defender thus far this season.
#MUFC winger ?? POTM winner
Presenting our first 2019/20 Player of the Month: @Daniel_James_97! ? pic.twitter.com/ywzM071vCP
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 6, 2019
James, who many, if not most United supporters were very underwhelmed by when he was signed from Swansea City this summer, has been a revelation early on.
He took home the first United Player of the Month Award of the 2019-20 season. Elsewhere, the Manchester Evening News has a fitness update for every player who is out injured or potentially questionable for the next match. The M.E.N. post also includes the latest on long term injury absentees Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Diogo Dalot and Eric Bailly.
That said, let’s take a spin through where we currently stand on each player.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka missed his first chance to play for England, as he withdrew from camp due to an unspecified back injury. There is no definitive time table on the recovery for Wan-Bissaka, but at the same time there are no reports indicating that he’ll be out of commission long term.
Paul Pogba withdrew from international duty with France, and was replaced on the national side by Arsenal’s Matteo Guendouzi. It’s almost certainly just precautionary though.
“He twisted his ankle, I think,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said after the draw with the Southampton, “but he’ll go away and hopefully it’s not too bad and he can play for France because I know how much he loves his country and playing for them.”
Moving on, left back Luke Shaw and forward Anthony Martial both got hurt in the loss to Crystal Palace. Both were supposedly in contention for the clash at the St. Mary’s, but both missed out.
Solskjaer said originally in regards to Shaw: “We will do the scans tomorrow (August 25) but he felt something in his hamstring. Hopefully he won’t be too bad and will be back for Southampton.” Solskjaer on Martial after the Palace defeat and ahead of the Southampton game:
“We’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully [he] won’t be too bad and maybe we can have [him] training during the week.”
Finally, Matteo Darmian has reflected on his time at United now that he’s moved to Parma. More from the Daily Express here.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.