United travel to league leaders Arsenal, looking for a first Premier League away victory at The Emirates since 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Red Devils have won twice in the FA Cup away at the Gunners since, including last season<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two players who featured in that cup clash are looking unlikely to make it this weekend.<\/p>\n What should be Manchester United\u2019s front three against Arsenal? <\/p>\n Only three can start\u2026. who are you picking?<\/p>\n AmadBenjamin SeskoBryan MbeumoJoshua ZirkzeeMatheus CunhaMason MountShea Lacey \ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n Two players who missed the Manchester Derby are also at risk of failing to make the squad this weekend.<\/p>\n Matthijs de Ligt<\/a> and Joshua Zirkzee<\/a> were both absent from training on Wednesday 21, Sky Sports<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n De Ligt has missed the last nine consecutive Premier League games, while he deals with a back problem.<\/p>\n Zirkzee has a minor injury which saw him miss the Derby, after featuring as a substitute in the FA Cup defeat to Brighton.<\/p>\n Head coach Michael Carrick<\/a> said last weekend that he hoped to welcome De Ligt back soon<\/a>, but it does look to be unlikely to be this weekend \u2013 at this stage.<\/p>\n De Ligt was outstanding in the Premier League clash with Arsenal at the start of the Premier League season, and he has been a big miss for United in recent weeks.<\/p>\n There are no fresh injury problems to report ahead of the trip to The Emirates, beyond the pre-existing issues for Zirkzee and De Ligt.<\/p>\n Is Manchester United\u2019s XI stronger in 2026 or 2021? <\/p>\n This was the line-up Michael Carrick used to defeat Arsenal in his spell as interim manager<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n Martinez and Maguire likely to continue<\/p>\n Even if Matthijs de Ligt was suddenly available, we would not expect him to go straight into the Manchester United starting line-up.<\/p>\n Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martinez were both terrific<\/a> at the weekend against City and deserve to keep their places.<\/p>\n There is already strong competition from Ayden Heaven<\/a> and Leny Yoro<\/a>, who will be pushing in training to show that they deserve to start.<\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United are stepping up preparations to take on Arsenal in the Premier League. After a sensational win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,784,18043,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-383195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-joshua-zirkzee","tag-matthijs-de-ligt","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Amad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2256130780-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Darren Staples \/ AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Joshua](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2253741347-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by James Gill \u2013 Danehouse\/Getty ImagesMatthijs de Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee miss training<\/p>\n![\"United\/Arsenal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Predicted-XI-11-819x1024.png\")
Getty Images <\/p>\n