Manchester United succumbed to a disappointing 0-1 defeat at the hands of Wolverhampton Wanderers in their Premier League game at Old Trafford on Sunday.
After the high of the Europa League, Ruben Amorim decided to make quite a few changes to his starting XI and apart from the Academy youngsters, almost all the senior options let him down.
Two surprising omissions were Luke Shaw, who had come on as a substitute against Olympique Lyonnais, and Altay Bayindir, who had started in the last league game against Newcastle United.
But as the club website confirmed, the Turkish international, who recently recovered from injury, suffered a small issue in training and therefore, the Portuguese tactician did not want to risk further aggravating the injury.
Shaw given a rest
As for the left-back, he has come back from four months on the sidelines and after playing for almost 75 minutes against Lyon, Amorim did not feel it prudent to include the Englishman in the matchday squad.
“I can give you the example of Luke Shaw. In my mind, he was playing 30 minutes [against Lyon],” head coach Amorim told MUTV.
“But, because of the problems we had at half-time with Victor [Lindelof] and Nous [Mazraoui] and then extra-time, he did a very good job but a lot of minutes.
“He has to feel that load to rest now and then he will train for the next game.”
Bayindir small injury
Given Shaw’s injury record, Amorim did the right thing to avoid the full-back suffering another injury. The head coach has to be extra careful with the England international, whose future remains up in the air.
“There is also no Altay Bayindir on the bench for the 14:00 BST kick-off at Old Trafford this afternoon.
“The Turkey international has suffered a small issue in training but has no major problem, and is left out purely as a precaution.”
Shaw’s omission meant Harry Amass got another start and the Academy ace was impressive.
Tom Heaton was on the bench as backup keeper while Jonny Evans also returned to squad for the first time in over four months.
Feature image Julian Finney via Getty Images
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Ayantan Chowdhury
Ayantan has worked for 10 years in the Indian sports media industry, writing for the biggest newspapers and websites but his heart was always set on writing about his favourite club. Currently an editor at The Peoples Person. You can follow him on X: @ayantanc_25
