A new chapter in Manchester United 's dreadful season has been written after it was revealed the Premier League giants spent more than £25million on injured players.
The Red Devils finished a lowly sixth in the Premier League last term as they missed out on qualification for the Champions League. Both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick were hampered by injuries to key players throughout the campaign as the wheels came off for United.
United were so badly hit by injury issues that they spent a total of £25.7m in salary cost on injured players, according to Premier Injuries. They were the only club in the top-flight to break the £20m mark, with Chelsea the next highest.
In fact, United's injury problems were so bad that four of the five costliest issues could be attributed to them. That quartet came in the form of Paul Pogba, Raphael Varane, Edinson Cavani and Anthony Martial, all of who spent significant time in the treatment room.
Pogba alone cost the Red Devils more than £5m in salary while he was out of action. A hamstring problem suffered in the Autumn international break ruled him out of 11 Premier League games and he also missed the final five weeks of the campaign with a calf issue.
Cavani meanwhile missed an astonishing 19 Premier League games in total with a range of injuries. Varane had been expected to form a solid partnership with Harry Maguire in central defence, but those hopes were dashed as he was ruled out of 13 games through injury.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Who will win the Premier League next season? Comment below.
Along with Martial, those three were behind Chelsea star Ben Chilwell, who's ruptured ACL cost the Blues £4.9m and saw him miss 25 games. Other injuries to Romelu Lukaku, Reece James, Christian Pulisic, N'Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic led to Chelsea paying out the second most amount of money on crocked stars.
Everton, Liverpool and Manchester City all also spend more than £10m on injured players. Leicester, Tottenham, Newcastle, Arsenal, West Ham and Aston Villa spent between £5m and £10m on players who spent time in the treatment room.
The team to spend the least was newly-promoted Brentford, mainly thanks to the way they had built their squad. Like the Bees, Southampton, Leeds, Watford, Brighton, Burnley, Crystal Palace and Norwich City all also spent less than £5m on injured players.
The extent of United's injury problems can leave little surprise that Rangnick frequently slammed that record. Ahead of their trip to Liverpool in April, the German had called for an investigation into why the Red Devils had suffered so much compared to their rivals.
"We lost a few players that we should not have lost. We lost a few other players and right now we have a few injury problems with important players who should normally be in the starting XI. It is no excuse or alibi, [these are] things that happen," he said.
"This is also an issue that worries me a bit - the number of injuries that we currently have. I compare that with Liverpool, although they are still competing in four competitions, they have no injury problems at all. We play only in the Premier League and we have five or six players injured. This is also an issue that needs to be taken care of in the future. To analyse why is that the case? Why does it happen?"
