The absence of Luke Shaw and Donny van de Beek from Manchester United’s squad for tonight’s Europa League game against Real Sociedad means manager Erik ten Hag will have to rethink his approach to the game.
In our predicted XI published on Tuesday, we argued that there would be 10 changes to the squad that started Sunday’s game against Arsenal, with Antony remaining in the squad to improve match fitness and help his integration.
However, United are short of experienced midfield options if the three usual starters (McTominay, Eriksen and Fernandes) are rested.
This has caused several reporters to speculate that youngsters like Zidane Iqbal, Isak Hansen-Aaroen and Kobbie Mainoo would get starting places, but we think this is unlikely.
While Ten Hag appears to have great faith in these young stars, he is unlikely to unleash them against stronger opponents in this Europa League group from the start of the match.
This means that players who would have otherwise chosen to rest are more likely to start the game and that Ten Hag will hope to build a good lead early in the second half so that the youngsters can replace them, the best of both worlds where the regulars from the first team can put their feet up while the youngsters put them under the table.
Shaw’s absence will almost certainly mean that Tyrell Malacia is one of the first-team players to come into action, simply because there are few other options at left-back.
Alex Telles has been loaned to Sevilla and Álvaro Fernández to Preston.
Ahead of Malacia, Jadon Sancho could also be selected to start again. Ten Hag has kept him relatively fresh, as he has been regularly replaced in successive Premier League games. The obvious alternative, Anthony Elanga, has put in some extremely toothless performances so far this season, so the prospect of fielding the best player and continuing the process of understanding with the Dutch full-back makes more sense.
Alejandro Garnacho could replace Sancho at game time if United are in a winning position.
It seems pretty certain that Casemiro and Fred will star in midfield, but without Van de Beek, the question is which first-team player will play again. We think the most likely is Fernandes, who Ten Hag will look to replace with Iqbal or Eriksen/McTominay at game time, depending on the score.
Various reports have suggested that the starts of Martin Dubravka in goal, Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof in defense and Cristiano Ronaldo up front are planned based on our prediction on Tuesday, which would leave the team looking like this:
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