adminAshley Young faces a fight to play again this season after the Manchester United star suffered a groin injury that will require surgery.
Young was hurt in last weekend’s victory at Liverpool and joins other full-backs Antonio Valencia, Luke Shaw, Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo on the sidelines.
Bastian Schweinsteiger and Michael Carrick will also miss today’s game at home to Southampton.
Van Gaal said: “Young last week suffered a severe groin injury and has to have an operation so he’ll be out for a long time.
“It’s not just a month or so but longer and we already have big problems in the full-back positions.
“We now have had four players injured in the full-back positions”.
Guilermo Varela and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson could both come into contention for the Saints game, but Van Gaal confirmed that signing a new full-back is a priority in this transfer window.
He added: “I think when you see our bad luck with all my fulbacks — Valencia, Shaw, Rojo, Darmian, Young sometimes — they’re all injured. And only Darmian is now back.”
“I need fullbacks and you’ve seen that I’ve used a lot of times youngsters from second team. Borthwick-Jackson and Varela are doing great but the level of Manchester United is high. To give every week a high performance normally it’s very difficult to deliver that for youngsters.
“That’s why we’ve to look always, especially in this window for replacements.
“The problem is that we asked for a level and the clubs don’t want to sell in this period. So we’re looking but it’s not so easy. Everyone thinks it’s easy but it’s not so.” — SportsMail
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter