Clubs should establish injury rule

IF DALEY Blind, Michael Carrick and David de Gea are all forced to miss Saturday’s Premier League game at Arsenal through injury then Manchester United should be allowed to request the game be postponed.

Having any player injured on international duty is unfortunate. But to have three of their starting XI all crocked while on European Championship qualifying duty in the past few days has been spectacularly unlucky.

If you think this is ridiculous, imagine if it happens to your club. Now you can see the logic, right? Stop hating United, and think about this as a ruling that could benefit football and all clubs.

There is a problem establishing a rule: how do you decide how many players must be injured before a club can request a postponement?

For me, three seems reasonable; as long as they’re all regular firstteam players. Squads should be big enough to cope with one, even two injuries. But three players coming back from international games crocked, creates a situation that’s much harder to work with.

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has been left with a depleted squad to choose from on Saturday. A United second string side, with three injuries dumped on them by international football, away to Arsenal, is potentially lambs to the slaughter, and in simple terms it’s unfair.

One question that arises from this idea: how many games can be postponed by the club that suffers? In my opinion, just one. That should be long enough for any club to work with the remaining players in the squad.

There is another aspect to this. Last month I interviewed Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill and asked him how he felt about the Everton pair Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy missing the game in Germany, and then playing for their club a few days later.

The issue cropped up again with Ireland assistant Roy Keane saying Roberto Martinez didn’t play for his country, so he doesn’t understand the situation from the point of view of an international manager. Keane says it’s a relief when he sees Coleman and McCarthy turn up for the national side. It’s an unlikely scenario but imagine that Wayne Rooney, Chris Smalling and Luke Shaw were all injured in Glasgow last night. That would make a total of six Manchester United players injured on international duty. It’s a situation that needs addressing – most clubs would agree with that.– Daily Mail