The Manchester United first XI could be about to return with two signings

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Sir Alex Ferguson's final season in management was replete with not just one more Premier League title but one more banning of a journalist.

It was actually two journalists. Mark Ogden and Paul Hetherington were deemed personas non grata for having the temerity to report that Rio Ferdinand would miss Manchester United's first game of the season at Everton.

A defensive injury crisis forced Ferguson to relocate Michael Carrick to centre back alongside Nemanja Vidic on his first appearance in eight months. United lost to a Marouane Fellaini header from a corner at Goodison Park.

Ferdinand's absence emerged over the weekend and the game was on a Monday night. Ferguson was furious that sensitive team news information had leaked and, during his final post-match chat with Sky Sports, likened United to a "sieve".

It was peculiar that Ferguson, in his seventies and into his 27th year managing United, operated as though journalists were on the club payroll. As recently as December, there was dismay among some of the United online fanbase that this correspondent had obtained the starting XI for the Manchester derby at the Etihad the day before kick-off.

On that occasion, the United manager and staff were nonplussed as team news leaks have gone on for years at the club. Jose Mourinho marvelled at journalists' sourcing but was appalled that someone privy to such information was loose-lipped.

David Moyes vainly attempted to counter team news leaks when he correctly identified the leaker - a senior member of the first team squad. Louis van Gaal's goalkeeping coach, Frans Hoek, followed specific journalists on Twitter after they reported on acrimony in the squad. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag were blasé about early team news entering the public domain.

The appetite for team news has become more insatiable amid the growing popularity of fantasy football. Participants want to be certain of who's in and who's out before the Saturday 11am deadline to pick their teams.

Curiosity around United's starting XIs next season could diminish. In a season where United may play as few as 40 matches, their regular players should, at the very least, be aiming to start the vast majority of their 38 Premier League fixtures.

Ruben Amorim has named an unchanged team only once as United coach, away at Lyon in the Europa League quarter-finals after the goalless draw with Manchester City at Old Trafford. Rotation was rife as United progressed in that tournament and their league form was sacrificed.

Innumerable injuries meant Ten Hag selected his clear and obvious starting XI only once, at Wolves in February 2024. United were so impressive in the first hour of the exhausting 4-3 win that Ten Hag was visibly unhappy they had not won by a wider margin.

Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot are two of the most durable players in Europe, never mind England. Noussair Mazraoui, likely to be reduced to squad-player status next term, started in 34 Premier League matches in his first season in the competition.

Injury will prevent Andre Onana from appearing during United's pre-season tour of the United States but he has not missed a league match through injury. United's five specialist centre backs all admittedly endured lengthy injury lay-offs in 2024-25.

Bryan Mbeumo is still not a United player but lined up in all 38 of Brentford's matches last term. Brentford played 43 games overall. United are a new striker and Mbeumo short of an obvious first XI.

The United fitness staff has been freshened up. Richard Hawkins has left after 17 years mainly overseeing the team's physical performance and Paolo Gaudino has gone after 14 years as fitness coach. Amorim's compatriot, Paulo Barreira, is leading the club's sports science. Alistair McBurnie and Michael Eglon, relatively recent additions to the sports science department, both remain.

With a lighter workload and greater recovery time between games, United's injury toll should be lower than previous campaigns. That said, the last time they had a year devoid of European football they had such regular injury issues that Van Gaal made light of the fact they had "only one player injured" on the eve of the visit of Southampton in January 2015.

There are eerie parallels 11 years on: a United manager's first full season, the team operating in a back three and without a UEFA competition to fill the calendar. Ed Woodward confidently briefed that the injury-prone trio Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Jonny Evans would have their "most available seasons" in 2014-15. All three were sidelined six games into the campaign and Paddy McNair had to come into the fold.

A United manager seldom picks the same players in successive weeks. The outlier was when the Premier League season restarted amid the Covid-19 pandemic in June 2020. Solskjaer maximised the three-month suspension by settling on a winning formula that was unchanged in five consecutive league games.

That had not happened since February 1993. Back then, United were galvanised by Eric Cantona and fixated on ending their 26-year title drought. Their European campaign ended in September and they exited the FA Cup at Sheffield United in the midst of the league run.

The closest Ferguson ever got to a sequence of unchanged sides again was in October and November 2006 when he entrusted the same XI in three consecutive league fixtures. The common denominator is the 1992-93 and 2006-07 titles were his greatest domestic triumphs.

Solskjaer's strategy eventually backfired. He would gain a reputation for running players into the ground and, after the 2-2 draw with Southampton, was without a recognisable left back as Luke Shaw and Brandon Williams became two flies to drop. Right back Timothy Fosu-Mensah returned like Lazarus for his first United appearance in more than three years at Crystal Palace.

In Van Gaal's first season, he did not opt for the same XI until Tottenham Hotspur away on December 28 2014, two days after the Boxing Day stroll against Newcastle United. It made little sense with that unforgivingly tight turnaround and Van Gaal admitted after the goalless draw the second half was "a struggle for life".

He happened upon a winning formula three months later. With Shaw injured again and the meek Angel di Maria suspended, Van Gaal moved Daley Blind to left back, recalled Jones and Juan Mata and United blitzed Spurs 3-0 in the first half of the reverse fixture. In their next game, United produced what remains their best performance at Anfield in the past 30 years to win 2-1.

Bar an enforced change for the resumption of the season at home to Aston Villa, Van Gaal kept the same side for four games running. The sequence only ended with Vincent Kompany's malicious tackle on Blind and a season-ending calf injury to the pivotal Carrick in the 4-2 defeat of City.

After much trial-and-error with other systems, Van Gaal had switched to a 4-3-3 formation. That was reported by the MEN before it was introduced.

Nobody was banned.

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