Manchester United suffer double injury in pre-season friendly defeat to Arsenal

Manchester United suffered a double injury woe in pre-season with Leny Yoro and Rasmus Hojlund injured in a friendly defeat to Arsenal.

The Red Devils were beaten 2-1 by their Premier League rivals in Los Angeles overnight.

Hojlund had put Manchester United ahead after just 10 minutes after running onto a through ball from Marcus Rashford before scoring through the legs of goalkeeper Karl Hein.

But five minutes later he was limping away.

United’s new £52million signing Yoro was also a first-half casualty as he went down without the ball and was immediately substituted.

“We have to wait 24 hours and then we will hopefully know more,” Ten Hag told MUTV.

“We’ve been very careful, especially with Leny. It’s disappointing that he had to come off but let’s stay positive and see what happens.”

Gabriel Jesus then scored Arsenal’s equaliser after 25 minutes, before Gabriel Martinelli scored the winner nine minutes from time.

The two teams then played a pre-arranged penalty shootout, with Jadon Sancho scoring the winning penalty in a 4-3 penalty shootout victory.

The injuries will leave a bitter taste in the mouth of manager Ten Hag, who saw the 2023/24 season ruined by injuries.

Manchester United suffered 45 separate injuries last season, the most in the last 20 years.

In total, 21 different players missed 1,620 days of play.

“It’s really too much. We’re not the only team that has had injury problems, other clubs have had the same thing,” he told Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad in July.

“Last season we had constant injuries to players in the same positions, all at the back. At one point we had almost no defenders available.

“When we started here, United hadn’t won a trophy for six years and it wasn’t really down to a lack of good managers here. It says a lot about the composition and quality of the playing group. I knew that when I started, of course, but these were players on long-term contracts.

“We were and are still in that process (of building). If you compare our squad to other big clubs in the Premier League, we are certainly a little bit less in terms of depth. That is exactly why we have had such a hard time dealing with these injuries.”

Losing Yoro and Hojlund to injury is not ideal preparation for the 2024/25 campaign.

They will face Real Betis on Thursday, before Liverpool next Sunday.

Manchester United will next face rivals Manchester City in the Community Shield on August 10, having beaten them in the FA Cup final in May.

Their first Premier League game of the season will be at home to Fulham on August 16.