Anders Lindegaard is out for 4-6 weeks but David De Gea should be available for Sunday.

Rafael has reflected on this bad luck but wonders whether his style of play has an influence on it.

“Some of my injuries, you just don’t hear about people having them very often,” he told the official site. “I’ve dislocated my right shoulder twice now and needed an operation to help it heal. It’s not usual for footballers to injure shoulders. And twice! I can only say it must be down to bad luck. . I like to play with passion and when I’m on the pitch I can’t worry about getting hurt or stop making tackles. I just want to play football and give my all.”

In his absence, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling have played well at right back, but Rafael enjoys having the competition for a starting place in the team.

“It’s a good thing when you have that sort of competition,” he said. “When I watch Phil or Chris play at right back I just think, “Wow. Okay, I’m going to have to work even harder now if I want to get back in the team.” They’ve done really well.”

However, Mike Phelan has given us hope that Jones could be available for our FA Cup clash at Anfield.

“Phil’s character is very good,” said Phelan. “He is disappointed that, over the last few weeks, he seems to have limped around the football field quite a bit. But he usually manages to recover, so we’re optimistic he can do the same again.”

Sir Alex Ferguson revealed after the game that Michael Carrick played with a hamstring injury during the second half at the Emirates, whilst Darren Fletcher is ruled out for the season and Tom Cleverley is still weeks away from making his return. Anderson played for 15 minutes against City in the FA Cup but in the two games since hasn’t even been on the bench, with wantaway Paul Pogba filling a midfielder’s spot on the bench for our game against Bolton.

The last time we were stretched for central midfielders, Ferguson opted to started Rafael and Park Ji-Sung, although we lost that game 3-2 at home to Blackburn. However, it is unlikely that even Rafael would be available to play in midfield at Anfield, given that Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand are injured, so Chris Smalling won’t be able to play at right-back.

If Jones doesn’t make a surprise recovery in time, we could see Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes starting in the centre of the field. Preferable to that would be Giggs starting on the left and Park partnering Scholes, considering our veterans don’t have the legs required to boss the midfield anymore. Let’s not forget it was Giggs’ brilliant ball in from the left that set up our opening goal at Arsenal and Park has plenty of energy to run around in the middle to give Scholesy a breather. Still, not ideal, is it?

Fingers crossed Micky isn’t getting our hopes up for nothing.

Fortunately for the lad, and for the team, Cleverley dealt with the expectation well, and confirmed his place in the starting XI at the start of the season.

However, a late challenge from Kevin Davies in our game against Bolton saw the midfielder ruled out for a month. He was brought back against Everton in October but was subbed off with less than an hour played.

“He’s felt his ankle again,” Ferguson said after the game. “It’s nothing serious, just tightness and tiredness. He should be okay next week and it was an excellent performance from him in the first half.”

Cleverley hasn’t played a game since, despite the club predicting he would be back by Christmas.

“It is pretty long term,” said Ferguson. “(He will be out until) Christmas time. It is unfortunate. It is worse than we thought. When he first came off against Everton he reported it as just a tightness, with a bit of pain. We have done scans again and the injury has recurred. We will have to give him a break.”

Christmas has obviously come and gone, with United losing two consecutive games, yet there has been no sign of our midfielder.

Today, on Twitter, Cleverley revealed how much longer he expected to be out for.

“Finally some good news. Plan to b outside running in 2 weeks and training the week after that. Cnt wait to b back!”

The Evening News is reporting this as a “boost” but I think it’s is pretty dreadful. It means he will have been missing from October to February, which is a bloody long time out for a player who has had such a positive impact on our play when he’s been on the field. If he won’t be training for three weeks then it could be ages before we see him back on the pitch again. Bad news for United… but not bad enough to convince Glazer to put his hand in his pocket.

However, Sir Alex Ferguson has today confirmed that there was no break and he is available for our game on Boxing Day against Wigan.

“Phil should be okay for Monday,” said Ferguson. “There’s a bit of swelling in his jaw but no break, no fracture, which is good news. We feared the worst because he lost his vision a bit in that period when he came back onto the field. Thankfully it’s good news.”

Ashley Young replaced Jones in that game before going off injured himself after hurting himself in a challenge. The former Villa man has lost his place in the starting line-up over recent weeks although certainly would have had plenty of game time over this busy festive period.

“It’s not so good for Ashley Young,” added Ferguson. “He’ll be out for a few weeks. Ashley was tripped as he went into the next tackle. He wasn’t positioned to go into that next tackle – he was half falling at the time. The second tackle was a hard tackle – not a bad tackle – it was just the way he went into Ashley. He’s taken a real clump and has a knee injury that will keep him out for a few weeks. As we get one back, we’re losing one. It’s not an easy spell for us. We just have to get on with it. The squad has handled the situation quite well.”

“The two of them are terrific talents,” said Ferguson. “But they keep getting injuries, the kids are always getting them. I’m hoping that maturity eradicates all these things they have but it’s all different types of injuries you know. They’re so sturdy. They’re strong boys but, possibly, they’re a wee bit optimistic in terms of the challenges they make. They always put a foot in, in terms of attacking-wise, and are always getting injured going into attacking moves. The boys just don’t see danger. Bryan Robson was that way too, ‘Bang, on they go’. They’re only 21, you know, they’re young. You forget they were in the team as teenagers. I think both of them could play right-back [in the long-term]. There’s nothing between the two of them really. They are both excellent talents and really positive players. It’s what I love about them. They don’t have an inkling of fear in the way they play at all. They’ve always been really positive lads and it’s the Brazilian nature.”

“The injury is not bad, I am just working hard with the physios and doing what they tell me at the minute,” Cleverley said. “I am in the gym just working hard really to try and get back fit. We are not looking to put any time limits or set targets just yet. I am just working hard looking after the injury and I am sure we will set targets in a couple of weeks. It’s always frustrating for a footballer to get injured, but when you are in good form and when your team is winning it is doubly frustrating. It has been a bit of tearing my hair out stage for me as I just want to be playing all the time.”

Fletcher has been suffering from ulcerative colitis for some time which has lead to long periods on the sidelines.

The club’s medical staff have advised that he takes time out from playing to give him the best “chance possible of achieving full remission once again.”

Get well soon, Fletch.

What is ulcerative colitis?

Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the large intestine (colon) and rectum.

The cause of ulcerative colitis is unknown. People with this condition have problems with the immune system, but it is not clear whether immune problems cause this illness.

About half of patients with ulcerative colitis have mild symptoms. Patients with more severe ulcerative colitis tend to respond less well to medications.

Permanent and complete control of symptoms with medications is unusual. Cure is only possible through complete removal of the large intestine. The risk of colon cancer increases in each decade after ulcerative colitis is diagnosed.

Is this season exceptional for injuries, compared to what United typically experience? Is it bad compared to our major competitors? And what about United’s injury record over the longer term – exactly how does that stack up? With those questions in mind, I trundled my mouse over to physioroom.com, captured whatever data was available, pumped it into Microsoft Excel and run the numbers. What I found was generally good news about our longer term record—but it definitely confirms our worst fears about the current season.

Overview

Data is available for all current PL clubs back to August 2002. However, I focused on only six clubs: United, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and City. Partly, this was because of the effort (though now it’s reasonably quick to add another club). More importantly, though, the number of injuries is bound to be affected by how many matches a club plays, and most clubs typically have a significantly lighter schedule than us (since most are not regularly in Europe and do not go far in the various domestic cups). In terms of schedule, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs are probably most comparable to us; and of course, I included City, for obvious reasons.

For each injury, the data includes the player’s name, a brief description of the type of injury, and the date reported. Unfortunately, it does not include the date that the player returned to action. I had been hoping to calculate how many matches each injury cost that player, but it wasn’t possible. Consequently, I wasn’t able to determine whether our injuries are generally more or less severe than those at other clubs.

However, I was able to break the data down into major categories of injury (Ankle, Calf, Hip etc) and I was also able to analyze the data both by calendar year and by season (for the season dates, I counted each season from July 1, since the actual start date moves around, and injuries also occur between seasons).

The Bottom Line

So what of it? How do United fare?

In regards to our current plight, the answer can be summed in one word: bloody shithouse (OK, make that two words). Looking first at the calendar year 2011, already we have reported 65 injuries, making it our third-worst year (since the beginning of 2003), and we still have a handful of matches remaining this year. Our worst year in that period was 2009, when we had 71 injuries, but just one more injury this year will equal our second-worst (66 in 2004). Incidentally, our average for a full calendar year is 56.625, so we are already way above that. Our best year was 2005, with 41.

However, when we break the data down by season, the picture looks dramatically worse.

The data includes nine full seasons (2002-03 to 2010-11) plus this season’s partial data. On average over the nine full seasons, we have reported 57.1 injuries. Our worst season was 2002-03, with 74, and our best was 2005-06, with 46. Last season, we had 60, slightly worse than average.

This season, though, we are already at 40, and the season is not yet at the half-way mark. Although it is difficult to calculate, a rough estimation shows that if we keep going at the current rate, we could end the season with well over 100 injuries. Of course, there’s no way to know for sure. However, when I did the same estimation for the other teams, most actually do appear to be on track for what you would expect based on their history. Only ours and Arsenal’s are wildly out of whack, indicating that we both may be heading for very bad seasons in terms of injury.

I also counted the number of injuries we report each season, between July 1 and December 7. On average, over the previous nine seasons, we reported 27 injuries during that period. This year, as I have already said, it is 40, which is a record for that period. Any way you look at it, this is a horror season.

However, as discussed in the next section, the good news is that United actually seem to be doing OK in the longer term. Our record isn’t the best, but it’s not the worst either – about middle of the pack, in fact. (And our figures look even better when you exclude City, who, as we know, have not generally had a busy schedule until recently.)

The Details

And so, to the details.

1. Number of injuries, by calendar year

* The Average, Best and Worse figures exclude 2002 and 2011, which are both incomplete years.

2. Number of injuries, by season

* The Average, Best and Worse figures exclude 2011-12, which is incomplete.

An analysis of the seasonal data raises a couple of interesting points. First of all, while commonsense might suggest that the rate of injuries increases as we get deeper into a season, the data suggests otherwise. In six of the previous nine seasons, 48% or more of injuries had occurred by this date (December 7), even though a typical season is less than 40% done by then.

Secondly, the average number of injuries suffered by this stage of a season is only 27. We are way above that, with 40. In the period 2002-03 to present, we have never had as many injuries by this stage of a season. Last season, the figure was 32. The season before, it was 36—and both those seasons included the long-term injury to Hargreaves (who hardly counts as a seasonal injury).

3. Types of Injuries

This table shows the percentage of injuries that fall into each category (for example, 21.5% of our injuries were ankle/foot injuries). I did not include all types of injuries, and although I did tabulate this data for all six clubs, I am only including the data for United and the Average here. In general we have held up pretty well—we are slightly better than average in some areas, slightly worse in others. The biggest concern would be ankle injuries, which occur at almost 2% higher than the average rate (especially since this is such a large category for football). Our calf injuries are also running at slightly above the average rate, and perhaps it is worth noting that tackling is one of the main causes of lower-leg injuries generally. Perhaps we aren’t getting as much protection from the referees as some ABUs would have us believe!

On the other hand, we have done well in back injuries (despite Rio’s problems) and groin injuries. We have also done well in shoulder injuries (something I was previously concerned about): although the data shows we are about average, Rafael da Silva’s shoulder problems actually contribute a large proportion of those. When you remove them from the equation, our figures are way better than the average.

(By the way, Arsenal suffer twice as many shoulder injuries as anyone else, and more than three times as many as some. If I was an Arsenal supporter or coach, I would be asking questions about that, especially since shoulder injuries are relatively rare for footballers. But since I am not an Arsenal supporter or coach, I don’t give a shit.)

Overall, though, Arsenal have by far the worst record of the six clubs, in total number of injuries, seasonal averages or annual averages. The Gunners’ season average of 67 is worse than the maximum ever recorded by three of the clubs. Their minimum (57) is as high as our average and almost as high as several teams’ maximum. And looking at the type of injuries they suffer doesn’t offer many clues: apart from the anomaly I mentioned about shoulder injuries, the other categories all seem in line (in terms of percentage). It is not as if, for example, they suffer a disproportionate percentage of lower-leg injuries. Quite simply, their players get injured more often, in every way, and have been doing so over a long period of time.

Conclusion

Although the available data (which comes from physioroom.com) has some limitations, it does provide some comfort by showing that in general, our record is about average. However, Liverpool, Chelsea and City have been consistently and significantly better, and that’s a point of interest.

In City’s case, that may partially be explained by their lighter schedule in previous seasons. However, it should be noted that their rates this season, and this calendar year, are both extremely low—only 12 so far this season, and 30 for the calendar year to date. (I am sure you will join me in hoping their luck runs out sooner rather than later.)

But it is undeniable that, so far, this season has been our worst, and if the current rate continues, it will be our worst by a very large margin.

This is absolutely devastating news for the club, given the massive difference he makes to our defensive performances.

“We thought it was a bad one,” said Ferguson. “He’s out for the season. It’s not unexpected but it’s still bad news. He’ll see a specialist on Monday to work out the progress of when he has the operation. It won’t be immediate as we have to let the swelling come down.”