Manchester United will welcome Manchester City to Old Trafford on Sunday for the first Manchester derby of the season, but both sides go into the fixture stretched thin by injuries, with a combined eight players either ruled out or in serious doubt.
Michael Carrick is already resigned to losing five first-team players for the visit of Enzo Maresca’s side.
Manuel Ugarte remains the club’s longest-term absentee and will not be considered again until next spring at the earliest, after the Uruguayan suffered a serious knee injury on World Cup duty.
Matthijs de Ligt is also unavailable, though Carrick did offer supporters a note of encouragement on the Dutch defender’s recovery.
Tom Heaton and Amad are both expected to remain sidelined with separate muscle injuries, and there is no clear timeline for either man’s return.
Carlos Baleba, meanwhile, has still not featured since his ankle injury in pre-season, sustained shortly before his £70m arrival from Brighton and Hove Albion.
Luke Shaw‘s involvement is also in question heading into the weekend, according to Manchester Evening News.
Maresca’s City nursing fitness worries of their own
The visitors are not travelling to Old Trafford at full strength either. Nico O’Reilly, who has become one of Maresca’s most trusted performers since establishing himself as City’s first-choice left-back. He was forced to withdraw from the warm-up before last weekend’s win over Coventry City with a back injury.
He did not train on Monday and was subsequently left out of the squad that flew to Portugal for City’s Champions League opener against Porto, leaving his involvement in the derby uncertain.
There are also fresh doubts surrounding Jeremy Doku. The Belgium winger has struggled with a recurring calf problem since the Community Shield defeat by Arsenal last month, when he was withdrawn at half-time and later seen leaving the tunnel with ice strapped to his leg.
Speaking to reporters in the aftermath of that setback, Maresca explained the thinking behind Doku’s withdrawal and gave an early prognosis on the injury.
“At the moment the only one out is Jeremy Doku,” Maresca told reporters. “Unfortunately in the last game, at half-time, he was complaining about a little bit of pain in his calf.
“The idea with him was to play 45 minutes anyway, so the change was planned, but at the moment it looks like two or three weeks, no more than that.”
That timeline has since been tested, with Doku still working his way back to full sharpness and City’s medical staff understood to be treating his recovery with caution before committing him to derby duty.
A first taste of United vs City for Maresca
Sunday’s fixture will be a landmark occasion for Maresca, who takes charge of Manchester City in the Manchester derby for the first time since succeeding Pep Guardiola in the close season.
The Italian arrives at Old Trafford on the back of a bright start domestically, with City having maintained their unbeaten record in the Premier League courtesy of Erling Haaland’s header against Coventry.
The trip to Manchester follows a demanding week for City, who travelled to Portugal to face Porto in their opening Champions League group fixture, adding further fixture congestion to a squad already carrying knocks in defence and attack.
