Manchester United are managing injury concerns for key players Benjamin Sesko and Matthijs de Ligt ahead of their Premier League opener against Hull City. Sesko has not played since a collision with Ibrahima Konate last season, while De Ligt underwent back surgery in May and only returned to light training this week.
Benjamin Sesko's shin problem
Sesko, who joined United from RB Leipzig for £74million last summer, scored 12 goals in his first campaign. His last goal came in a 2-1 win over Liverpool, where he was shoved by Konate and fell on the Old Trafford slope. He did not feature for the rest of the season and missed all pre-season matches.
The Slovenia international travelled with the squad to Dublin for a friendly against Leeds and has trained with the team, but with no game minutes, his role in the opening weeks remains uncertain. Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs, which specialises in injury welfare and performance analytics, explained that shin problems can be challenging.
“Things like bone stress reaction or irritation of the outside of the bone are generally painful and slow to heal,” Smith told Metro. “Once he aggravated that [against Liverpool], the healing clock reset.”
Smith highlighted the risk of recurrence: “Bone stress injuries that aren't given enough time in recovery… it is well documented that they have the tendency to re-present and re-present more seriously as stress fractures. So the schedule with him is cautious.”
He added: “Returning just before the season opens with no preseason matches is not ideal but it is manageable if he has been doing significant conditioning work in the background and the bone has healed rather than just being symptom free. The summer is a double-edged sword. He needs the rest to recover but they also need to progressively load things to be ready for the season.”
Matthijs de Ligt's return timeline
De Ligt was an ever-present in United's starting XI before sitting out the win over Crystal Palace last November. Former manager Ruben Amorim had described it as “a small thing” and expected him back for the next game, but the Netherlands international did not play again that season.
In May, it was confirmed he had undergone back surgery. He returned to first-team training this week, but Smith does not expect an early comeback. “They are not going to suddenly accelerate things at this stage,” he said. “It has been a very conservative approach. I wouldn't expect to see him back out in the first four to six weeks of the season. We might be looking at somewhere around the eight week mark.”
Smith added: “From what the club have said and shared, it sounds like he has only started to do light, individual stuff right now. Think of the amount of work that will need to go in to get his conditioning base back. He will need his own pre-season and that will come after he comes to the point where the club think he is ready for that. I think we are looking at the 6-12 week window where we expect to see him. It is an issue that was more serious than everyone expected so they will continue to exercise caution.”
Fitness concerns for Mason Mount and Luke Shaw
Shaw started every Premier League match last season, benefiting from a lighter schedule with no European football. However, United's ongoing search for another left-back indicates the need for cover and eventual replacement for the 31-year-old, whose injury history is well-documented.
Mount started just 13 matches last season despite the lighter schedule. He shone during pre-season but picked up an injury in the draw with Paris Saint-Germain, leaving him a doubt for the trip to Hull. Smith noted that for players like Mount, the challenge comes with a heavier fixture schedule. “For someone like him, it is a genuine challenge when you have two or three games a week,” he said. “The answer is based around data-driven load management and how they recover in between fixtures and a willingness to make the call to rest him even when he is available.”
Smith added: “Carrick will be careful. The risk of him and other players like him with high intensity fixture schedules is accumulative load. It is not one individual session that breaks them down, it's the number of training sessions they get through in addition to playing two or three times a week. That's a significant toll on anybody, but someone who has a history like that and has proven they cannot tolerate it all that well, that's going to a significant challenge. Last year was a huge success for Shaw in managing a full season. But the caveat was it was one game a week.”
