As Harry Redknapp is famous for muttering, it’s now Manchester Uniteds time to be down to the bare-bones with no less than almost a full Premiership challenging XI out injured, the latest being 4 injuries at the midweek Derby Carling Cup game. Having recently gaining the top spot in the Premier League after failing to set the world alight this season we have now been reduced to a squad of players playing out of position, the latest victims being my favourite player, Anderson, out for 3 weeks with an ankle injury (it was originally suspected to be broken and despite this, Anderson played on the last 5 minutes), Jonny Evans, like Anderson with an ankle injury, again for 3 weeks, Nani is out with a groin strain for 1 week (though knowing him, it’ll probably be a month) and Rafael has a hamstring tweak, so that’s 3 weeks minimum.

Those players now join Wes Brown, Owen Hargreaves, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra and Ji-Sung Park as sidelined players, a total of 10 players, if we had a goalkeeper out injured you would literally have a team who could even compete for the Premier League injured. Now more than ever we need Berbatov to start shining, along with Tevez and Ronaldo and as long as Vidic remains fit we will have someone who will fight for everything at the back.

January into February could be a gruelling few weeks, though we may get to see more of young James Chester and Rafael’s twin brother, Fabio. Sadly, at the one time this season Anderson was almost guaranteed a solid run of games he gets injured, so we have to keep putting up with Darren Fletcher in the middle of the park. The only real highlight is that we do have some truly key players still fit in Tevez, Ronaldo, Carrick, Vidic and Van Der Sar, the latter two of which are crucial as we’ve seen in the past when we’ve lost them to injuries.