Michael Carrick spent the international break hoping to get bodies back. Instead, he lost one of the few left-sided defenders he still had.

Patrick Dorgu, who had deputised for Luke Shaw in United’s opening weeks, was withdrawn after 30 minutes of Denmark’s 1-0 win over Wales at the Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday, 4 October, and has been sent back to Carrington for scans on a suspected hamstring issue.

Denmark head coach Brian Riemer did not try to soften the news.

“He has an injury and has to go home,” Riemer told broadcaster TV2.

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The suspicion inside the Denmark camp is that this is a recurrence rather than a new strain. Dorgu missed a stretch of last season with a hamstring problem, and the way he pulled up in Cardiff, limping straight down the tunnel without a protest, pointed in the same direction.

A full-back squeeze, not just a Dorgu problem

The Dane is not the only full-back United got back damaged. Noussair Mazraoui was also pulled out of international duty after limping off for Morocco against Lesotho, leaving Carrick short on either flank.

Rasmus Hojlund’s 75th-minute penalty, after an error from Wales goalkeeper Danny Ward, won the match for Denmark. By then Dorgu was already in the dressing room, and Riemer admitted the wider picture had become a running joke in his staff room.

“And now Dorgu went out today. And it’s just really annoying, to be honest,” Riemer told TV2, estimating that seven or eight of his usual squad had missed this window through injury.

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What Carrick is working with

Tottenham arrive at Old Trafford on Saturday, 10 October, and the United treatment room reads badly for a team already 12th in the table.

• Patrick Dorgu: hamstring, out of Denmark camp
• Noussair Mazraoui: unspecified, pulled out of Morocco squad
• Benjamin Sesko: shin problem that kept him out of the Fulham match before the break
• Amad Diallo: yet to feature in a competitive fixture this season
• Matthijs de Ligt: gradual reintegration after back surgery

Carrick, who is in interim charge until the end of the season after taking over from Ruben Amorim, has one league win from five this term and is already being linked publicly to replacements. Eddie Howe’s name has surfaced as a potential successor should the board decide to move.

The Metropolitano, three days after Spurs

United are at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano on Tuesday, 13 October, for a Champions League league-phase meeting with Atletico Madrid. Diego Simeone’s side will be at home, familiar, and in no mood to let a visitor with Carrick’s current back four settle.

If Dorgu’s scans come back as a repeat of last season’s hamstring issue, Luke Shaw will be the only recognised senior left-back in the squad for both fixtures.

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