Manchester United take on Tottenham Hotspur early on into 2024.
Erik ten Hag will seek redemption from the previous leg this season, where his Manchester United side travelled to North London and lost 2-0.
Goals from Pape Matar Sarr and a Lisandro Martinez OG were enough to give Ange Postecoglou’s men all three points in August.
A contentious moment in that game was when VAR denied the Red Devils what looked like a clear penalty from a Cristian Romero handball. We won’t be having to worry about that at Old Trafford.
Unfortunate news came out of the Tottenham Hotspur camp yesterday, with Ange Postecoglou confirming Cristian Romero is now injured for his side, and will be out for ‘four to five weeks’.
“Not so great with Romero. He had a scan and he’s got a hamstring strain. We’re looking at four to five weeks with him,” he said in his press conference.
The £42.5m ace joins a lengthy list of injury absentees at Spurs, including James Maddison, Micky van de Ven, Rodrigo Bentancur and Ivan Perisic – who all will also probably miss the Red Devils fixture.
Manchester United take on Spurs on the 14th of January, which is well within the time frame of ‘four to five weeks’, so it looks like Romero won’t worry United players.
Spurs, like United, have been hit hard with injuries this season. The loss of the Argentine means they’ll likely have a makeshift centre-half pairing against United, January permitting of course.
Straight off the back of his first Premier League goal, many now expect Rasmus Hojlund to kick on in red.
The 20-year-old Danish forward was on a severe goal drought for the Red Devils, but his 3-2 Aston Villa game-winner will have done him the world of good.
Although we’ll never celebrate the injury of a player, Hojlund will be a lot more confident heading into this fixture without Romero on the pitch.
It will be his first outing against Tottenham, let’s hope he can repeat what he did against the Villans.