Phil McNulty reacts to what he’s heard on Hojlund before Man Utd v Fulham

It’s been a rather brutal month or so on the injury front for Erik ten Hag and Manchester United. First, centre-back Lisandro Martinez suffered a devastating setback in the form of a “serious” knee injury that will rule him out until April.

Elsewhere, right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka was on the comeback trail but then had to be taken out of training after encountering an issue and, this week, it emerged that left-back Luke Shaw is facing “a few months” out with a muscular problem in more “bad news”.

It hasn’t stopped there, with United confirming on Friday that striker Rasmus Hojlund is expected to be out for two to three weeks after picking up a muscle injury of his own.

Hojlund injury a “real blow” to Man Utd

BBC Sport’s Phil McNulty has offered his reaction to the news, sharing a post from United’s official X/Twitter page, noting that it comes at a particularly bad time given the player’s recent momentum.

Red-hot Hojlund will miss Manchester derby

It’s no exaggeration to say that Hojlund has been one of the best players in the Premier League this calendar year. After failing to score at all in the competition until Boxing Day, he’d found the net in each of his last six appearances – a feat only Eric Cantona (1995/96), Ruud van Nistelrooy (three times) and Cristiano Ronaldo (07/08) had previously managed for the Red Devils – and bagged his first top-flight brace in the 2-1 win over Luton Town last time out. Overall, the Dane was on an explosive run of eight in eight in all competitions.

No Premier League player has been directly involved in more goals since the turn of the year than his eight, but as you can see in the table below, he’ll miss the next three games in the division.

The one that stands out here, of course, is the Manchester derby a week on Sunday, a game for which United probably felt increasingly confident after a five-match winning run in all competitions. While Ten Hag’s side can realistically afford to lose at the Etihad in their push for Champions League qualification, they need to be picking up maximum points against 12th-place Fulham and 17th-place Everton to make up for it. In the absence of Hojlund, Marcus Rashford will simply have to step up, but he’s only scored five times this season.