Nottingham Forest vs Man Utd injury news - five doubts with an incredible 16 ruled out

Both Nottingham Forest and Manchester United have a plethora of injury problems ahead of Sunday’s Premier League meeting at the City Ground.

Remarkably, between the two clubs there could be as many as 21 absentees with varying severities of knocks and niggles, and United know for certain that they’ll be without six players at the for the game. Erik ten Hag confirmed after Thursday’s Europa League draw against Sevilla that Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez won’t feature this weekend, with Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof expected to deputise at centre-back.

Ten Hag also revealed in Friday’s pre-match press conference that Luke Shaw and Scott McTominy may have recovered in time from minor injuries, while Christian Eriksen and Anthony Martial are available again after long-term problems. Casemiro is also an option for the Red Devils following the culmination of his four-match suspension.

However, Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho won’t be involved through injury, nor will Tom Heaton and Donny van de Beek.

As for Forest, Steve Cooper said on Friday that none of his 13 injured players have recovered this week. “We picked up some injuries last week,” he admitted. I don’t want to put definite times on how long they are going to be out for, but it wasn’t great last week

“We haven’t got any players returning. Scott McKenna was back on the bench last week, which was a positive. He’s had another week’s training and is a little bit closer to starting games.”

Moussa Niakhate and Cheikhou Kouyate both returned from injuries in last week’s 2-0 loss to Aston Villa, but the pair were replaced with hamstring injuries. Emmanuel Dennis was an unused substitute at Villa Park and was described as a ‘risk’. It’s expected all three will miss out on the clash with United.

Jesse Lingard is also struggling with muscular issues and almost certainly won’t face his old side at the weekend, while on-loan Dean Henderson has a thigh problem. Serge Aurier, Renan Lodi, Ryan Yates and Gustavo Scarpa are set to miss out with minor injuries, but Willy Boly, Giulian Biancone, Omar Richards and Chris Wood are longer-term absentees.

Doubts: Niakhate, Kouyate, Dennis (Forest) Shaw, McTominay (United)

Ruled out: Henderson, Boly, Biancone, Aurier, Richards, Lodi, Yates, Scarpa, Lingard, Wood (Forest); Heaton, Varane, Martinez, Van de Beek, Garnacho, Rashford (United)