Update, 25/11/24:
Lisandro Martinez will be out for "2-3 weeks" according to UtdMenace. They say that the World Cup winner has discomfort on a spinal injury but that it's not serious.
United already have issues at centre-back with both Maguire and Yoro still out with their respective issues. Martinez is added to this list which gives Ruben Amorim a bit of a selection headache as he only has two centre-backs available despite needing three in his 3-4-3 formation.
One of them in Jonny Evans had a bit of a shaky game against Ipswich and was taken off very early in the second half. Luke Shaw replaced him and could give the manager another option but as with the left-back, reliability is his biggest issue.
The butcher pulled out of national team duties after he picked up an injury in United's 3-0 win over Leicester in the final match before the international break.
Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni had this to say regarding the defender:
“We didn’t expect the case of Lisandro. We saw that he had suffered a blow to his back, but apparently, he had no problem, just pain. When he arrived here, the pain increased a bit, he underwent tests and is not fit to be here.”
So while the injury may not be as bad as initially thought, it is still significant enough to keep him out for nigh on a month. Martinez was fine during that win over Leicester but did look to be feeling something at the end of that much needed win.
However, interim boss Ruud van Nistelrooy kept the butcher on as he completed the full 90 minutes which suggested that perhaps it was much ado about nothing.
Martinez has had a lot of injury problems since joining United as from the back end of the 22/23 season (his first at the club), the 26-year-old fractured his metatarsal in United's 2-2 draw with Sevilla in the Europa League.
He returned to be part of the start of last season but soon picked up another foot injury that was some recurrence to that metatarsal fracture which resulted in him being out for an even longer period than that original injury.
That foot issue at the beginning of last season was one of three major injuries as he picked up a knee injury missing up to 10 games for club and country which was followed by a calf strain that kept him out for 6 games.
This season, this problem will be his first injury. It's good that he hasn't been as injury prone so far this year compared to last but could this be the start of something?
Players in the past who've picked up several major issues so quick after each other resulted in many problems thereafter whether as severe or not. Now hopefully this is something small and insignificant and won't result in what we saw last season but anything is possible.
With new boss Ruben Amorim taking over, Martinez will want to be ready as soon as possible so as to be a part of the team. Amorim also uses three centre-backs with Martinez being a firm favorite for most to be one of those.
And also, what are the medical team doing? Shouldn't they have known that this injury is something that we shouldn't risk and that a substitution was in order? We also had players to replace him with and we were very comfortable in that game so taking him off wouldn't have been a problem.
Perhaps Ruud as well needs to take a little of the blame but really, the medical department should've known that it was a more serious issue.
Let's hope that this injury is nothing too bad though, and can be a time for the butcher to just take a bit of a break.
Background Image: Lisandro Martinez after Man Utd beat Leicester 3-0 | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)