Man Utd make major pre-season change to avoid Kobbie Mainoo injury blow

Manchester United have tweaked their pre-season tour plans to avoid repeating the mistakes that saw Kobbie Mainoo injured last year.

Erik ten Hag and his squad are back in the United States this summer and will gear up for the new Premier League season with games against Arsenal, Real Betis in Liverpool in Los Angeles, San Diego and South Carolina respectively.

United’s pre-season campaign last year took them to Oslo, Edinburgh, New Jersey, Houston, San Diego and Las Vegas, a trip of over 15,000 air miles that left Christian Eriksen admitting ‘there’s been a lot of games and too much travelling’.

United paid the price for that heavy schedule when Mainoo suffered an ankle injury in the 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid in Houston.

The midfielder had at that stage not broken into the first-team with that process delayed until November as a result. Mainoo has rarely been out of the starting XI since.

Ten Hag contended with a seemingly endless list of injury problems last season, particularly in defence where he was forced to name 13 different centre-half combinations while also being without a recognised left-back for much of the campaign.

While last season’s pre-season was not solely blamed for the fitness problems that would plague their campaign, the Telegraph report United ‘have now recognised the importance of giving players more rest and recovery’.

The club have accordingly reduced the amount of travelling this summer with just six pre-season games on the calendar, including the Community Shield clash against Manchester City on 10 August.

Leny Yoro, the club’s new £52million signing, was among the players to fly out to the US with Joshua Zirkzee still on his summer break.

Mainoo, Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martinez, Alejandro Garnacho and Facundo Pellsistri will also miss the tour after representing their nations in the latter stages of the European Championship and Copa America.

Tyrell Malacia has also not made the trip.

The left-back missed the entire 2023-24 season with a knee injury and has remained in Manchester to undergo further treatment.