midfielder Casemiro has suffered an ankle injury while on international duty with Brazil.
The 31-year-old was forced off with 11 minutes remaining in Brazil’s 1-1 draw with Venezuela on Thursday evening.
Brazil are due to play Uruguay in their qualifier on Tuesday night but it remains to be seen whether Casemiro will play any part in the fixture.
Speaking after his side’s draw, Brazil’s head coach Fernando Diniz said: ‘ asked to come off due to a blow to his ankle.’
Casemiro, who was signed in a £70 million deal from Real Madrid last year, has started all eight of United’s Premier League fixtures so far this season.
Meanwhile, United’s football director John Murtough has confirmed the club are investigating the patterns behind their lengthy injury list and claims Erik ten Hag’s side have been disrupted by fitness issues during the start of the season.
‘There are some strong mitigations for the mixed results so far, including 16 first-team players being injured or unavailable for periods since the start of the season,’ Murtough said.
‘That’s two-thirds of the squad and means that Erik has not been able to pick his strongest XI once this season. Thankfully, we’ve started to see some of the injured players returning and that should make a difference, including our new signings Rasmus Hojlund and Mason Mount who are still bedding into the team.
‘We’re also looking at why we’ve had so many injuries to see if there’s any patterns to improve prevention in future.
‘Some of them have been impact injuries such as Kobbie’s and Amad’s, which are unpredictable. Others have been muscular and could reflect the sheer volume of games played over the past year, including last year’s World Cup.’
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