Manchester United crashed out of the FA Cup on Sunday and now all the eggs are in the Europa League basket with the competition the club’s last chance at qualifying for Europe next season.
Ruben Amorim is not only worried about picking his players up after the Fulham result but also has to contend with injuries to multiple key stars.
Both Leny Yoro and Harry Maguire had to be subbed off in the last game while Kobbie Mainoo, Mason Mount, Altay Bayindir, Luke Shaw all remain sidelined.
Not to mention Amad and Lisandro Martinez set to be out for the season. This has been a recurring theme in recent history and given the team’s poor form, the Portuguese is certainly feeling the heat.
Scholes on mindset needed to overcome injury
Interestingly, United legend Paul Scholes was asked about how injuries are as much a mental issue as being a physical one and he offered interesting insight about how he looked at the setback and compared it with how modern players deal with the issue nowadays.
Speaking on The Overlap, the former midfield maestro said, “I think that mentality is a big thing when people get injured. Say someone does their hamstring and the physio says it’s eight weeks, the first thing I wanted to know was what I had done, how long I’d be out, then my mentality switched to, ‘right, I’m going to beat it. I’m going to get back before it.’
“I could imagine that I was a pain in the a*** for the physios because I was always going to the physio everyday saying, ‘what am I doing today? Can I step up to the bike? When am I going outside?’
“I don’t see that in many players these days. Once you say 12 weeks hamstring, that’s it, they’re taking 12 weeks and they’re not coming back before that.”
Aimed at certain players
And certain players are definitely proof that such mentality exists in the dressing room. Take for example, Shaw, who has played a total of 98 minutes all season.
While fans empathise with his injury problems, the player had time to appear in a TikTok video amidst United’s catastrophic run of form.
Mount’s appearance with former Chelsea teammates at a recent party was yet more proof of how players tend to take things lightly nowadays. The England international has missed a mammoth 58 games in his one-and-half seasons in Manchester.
And that simply cannot continue considering the massive wages they are on which is why INEOS are mulling over moving both on in the summer.
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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
