Six players to miss Manchester United vs Manchester City

Manchester United and Manchester City will lock horns on Sunday afternoon in this season’s first Manchester derby.

United and City both come into the fixture off the back of wins in the Champions League during mid-week with Michael Carrick’s men winning last night against Sabah SK whilst Enzo Marseca’s side picked up maximum points on their travels against Porto.

The result leaves both teams in the top eight of the Champions League’s league-phase table after one set of fixtures but focus is quickly turning towards Sunday where the two sides will battle for the ‘bragging rights’ of the city.

Coming into the fixture, City are top of the Premier League and are just one of two sides (alongside Arsenal) to have won each of their first three league matches whilst United are eleventh following late disappointment against Everton last weekend.

Both managers have now been opening up on their players’ fitness ahead of the fixture, with United reporting more casualties than their local rivals for the game.

Luke Shaw missed United’s opening Champions League game of the season last night and it remains unclear whether he will be able to play in Sunday’s game.

“We’ll have to see. We just looked after him a little bit,” Carrick said about the left-back when speaking to United’s club media.

“He wasn’t quite ready for it 100%, so we didn’t risk it. We’ll see how he is over the next couple of days.”

Amad Diallo, on the other hand, will definitely miss the game, having not played in the Premier League this season, and could be out until after the international break according to reports from the Daily Mail.

It is likely that Carrick will turn to Bryan Mbeumo in Diallo’s absence, as he has done for all of United’s games so far this season.

Matthijs de Ligt and Manuel Ugarte both remain out with long-term injuries, with no timeline put on their comebacks, whilst new signing Carlos Baleba is also a doubt for the game as he continues building towards his Manchester United debut.

Enzo Marseca, meanwhile, has said that full-back Nico O’Reilly will be fit to play at Old Trafford on Sunday for Manchester City.

“Nico is 100% available,” the manager said to City’s club media ahead of the match.

Speaking about Jeremy Doku, though, Marseca was not as optimistic with him saying: “Jeremy, I think he needs some more days.”

Antoine Semenyo started in Doku’s place against Porto on Tuesday evening and could be relied upon on Sunday should the Belgian international not be fit.

Enzo Marseca may also look towards Iliman Ndiaye, who signed for Manchester City in the late stages of the summer transfer window, in the left-wing position.

With this fixture meaning so much to the two clubs, and its supporters respectively, both Michael Carrick and Enzo Marseca will be hoping that the players on the edge of being match-fit can make the progress needed to feature at Old Trafford on Sunday.