Lisandro Martinez is out for the year, MU's defense is devastated
Man Utd midfielder Lisandro Martinez had to have a second surgery to completely treat his foot fracture and will only return from early 2024.
Martinez broke a bone in his foot in the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinals against Sevilla in April and had to miss the rest of the 2022-2023 season. The Argentine midfielder returned during summer training, but felt pain in the same area and had to leave the field early in the 1-3 loss at Arsenal in early September.
The 25-year-old player reappeared in the matches against Brighton in the Premier League and Bayern in the Champions League, but still felt discomfort in the bones of his feet. Therefore, he rested the last two matches against Burnley and Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
On September 29, Man Utd announced that Martinez would have to miss up to three months due to a recurrence of the problem that forced him to retire at the end of last season. According to British newspaper Sportmail, Martinez will go on the operating table for the second time today, October 2, to completely treat his foot injury.
During the press conference on September 29, coach Erik ten Hag confirmed that Martinez had carefully examined his injury to clearly determine the problem and was not in the best condition. According to him, this is the reason why Martinez has not played well in recent matches. "Martinez makes an important contribution to the team's quality of play, and if one person is not at his best, the team's performance will be lower," he said.
Man Utd is in a defensive crisis when full-backs Tyrell Malacia, Luke Shaw, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Sergio Reguilon are all absent due to injury. Therefore, Ten Hag had to pull defensive midfielder Sofyan Amrabat to play left back in recent matches and use the central defender duo Raphael Varane - Victor Lindelof.
Man Utd's injury list currently also includes Amad Diallo, Kobbie Mainoo, while Jadon Sancho was expelled from the first team due to disciplinary issues.
Before the break to make way for a series of national team matches in mid-October, Man Utd has two remaining matches: Galatasaray in round two of Group A of the Champions League on October 3 and Brentford in round eight of the Premier League on October 7.
Martinez followed Ten Hag and moved to Man Utd for 59 million USD from Ajax in the summer of 2022. Martinez was born in Gualeguay, Argentina on January 18, 1998, and grew up with Newell's Old Boys Club. He joined Ajax in the summer of 2019, was elected Best Player of the team for the 2021-2022 season and won three Dutch National Championships.
Martinez was once a member of Argentina's U20 team who went to Vietnam to compete, preparing for the 2017 U20 World Cup. But at that time, he did not play too prominently compared to teammates like striker Lautaro Martinez. But U20 Argentina still beat U20 Vietnam 4-1 and defeated U22 Vietnam 5-0. At the national team level, Martinez played 16 matches, was a member of the Argentina squad that won the 2021 Copa America, the 2022 World Cup and won the 2022 European and American Super Cup.
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