There were astonishing scenes at Old Trafford this weekend with Manchester United welcoming fierce rivals Liverpool on Sunday.
Whilst the highly-anticipated fixture was completely devoid of goals, what it was rampant with was a smorgasbord of injuries that produced three first-half substitutions for the hosts.
Interim Red Devils manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was forced into unprecedented tactical overdrive in what was possibly the biggest test of his credentials to steer the behemothic ship of Man Utd.
First Andreas Pereira came on for Ander Herrera after the tenacious Spaniard pulled up with a hamstring injury less than 20 minutes into the game.
Less than five minutes later, the board was up again, signalling that Juan Mata would be unable to continue with Jesse Lingard his replacement.
Lingard had been struggling to make the date after his own hamstring injury suffered in the recent Paris Saint-Germain Champions League clash.
It seems his return was a bit premature as the Englishman lasted less than 20 minutes of on-field action, exiting the pitch before half-time for Alexis Sanchez.
With all three substitutes used up, proper trooper Marcus Rashford hobbled through the match after being clattered around the pitch by the aggressive Liverpool side, with Solskjaer conceding in the aftermatch that the forward should have also come off before the 0-0 was played out.
Manchester United now travel to Crystal Palace mere days after that draw, and unfortunately with a depleted squad, with Nemanja Matic also ruled out for the next few weeks after picking up a training ground injury pre-Liverpool.
The Manchester Evening News speculates these unfortunate incidents could however open doors to some of the youth Manchester United currently have on the books, namely Mason Greenwood, Angel Gomes, and Tahith Chong, which was supported by Solskjaer’s post-match quotes that Rashford isn’t likely to feature in the next fixture;
If he plays [against Palace] I'll be maybe surprised.
I've never seen the like of this before, three hamstrings in the first-half. Rashy obviously was kicked, he did his ankle straight away, we should have taken him off as well, but we didn't did we.
But we’ve got some good kids coming through, so we’ll have 11 players on the pitch on Wednesday night. And luckily we’ve got two days recovery.
You’re never surprised in football, you’ve always got to be ready for anything. Losing three players in the first-half with hamstring injuries and we probably should’ve taken Marcus off as well.
[Jordan] Henderson went through him. His ankle is like a balloon, that was just one of many fouls on him. If that’s not an accumulation of fouls I don’t know. He’s a Manc and he knows what this means. We had to keep him on because we’d made three subs.
Liverpool skipper Henderson’s actions could may well have further repercussions should United drop any more points at Selhurst Park in their mid-week fixture and lose ground on making a top-four position and qualifying for the Champions League next season.
With the shared points at the Theatre of Dreams, Liverpool have gone marginally back to the top of the Premier league tree, whilst Manchester United have slipped down to fifth following Arsenal’s win over Southampton on Sunday.
