It was tense game at Old Trafford with the host who were suffering from injuries coming to the game to get more of the same although the two teams ended up sharing the spoils.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has suggested some Manchester United youngsters could make the midweek squad at Crystal Palace following a string of injuries.
Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard were all forced off in the first-half of United’s goalless draw with Liverpool, while Marcus Rashford played on with a swollen ankle.
Rashford was originally going to be replaced by Lingard until Mata was taken off in the 25th minute and then Lingard only lasted 18 minutes on his truncated comeback from a hamstring injury. Solskjaer confirmed all three withdrawn players succumbed to hamstring injuries.
Nemanja Matic also suffered an injury in training on Saturday in a session Anthony Martial failed to come through due to a groin problem. Prolific 17-year-old striker Mason Greenwood is also sidelined through injury, so Tahith Chong and Angel Gomes could figure at Selhurst Park on Wednesday.
“No idea at the moment, but we’ve got two days of recovery,” Solskjaer said of the extent of the United players’ injuries. When asked about Rashford specifically, Solskjaer added: “If he plays [against Palace] I’ll be maybe surprised.
“I’ve never seen the like of this before, three hamstrings in the first-half. Rashy obviously was kicked, he did his ankle straight away, we should have taken him off as well, but we didn’t did we?
“But we’ve got some good kids coming through, so we’ll have 11 players on the pitch on Wednesday night. And luckily we’ve got two days recovery!
“You’re never surprised in football, you’ve always got to be ready for anything. Losing three players in the first-half with hamstring injuries and we probably should’ve taken Marcus off as well.
“[Jordan] Henderson went through him. His ankle is like a balloon, that was just one of many fouls on him. If that’s not an accumulation of fouls I don’t know. He’s a Manc and he knows what this means. We had to keep him on because we’d made three subs.”
Despite the stalemate, United were arguably the better side against Liverpool, who returned to the Premier League summit despite an uninspiring performance. United are still unbeaten in the Premier League under Solskjaer and the Norwegian was able to extract positives from the performance.
“You come out with so much positives today,” Solskjaer added. “The fans were our 11th man today because we had half of Marcus and the crowd was fantastic. If Chris [Smalling] was a striker he would’ve got his studs on that one [chance in injury time] and Jesse’s [chance] before half-time.”