da dobrowin： The Dutch coach can finally count on Casemiro and Lisandro Martinez again, and now has his ideal starting XI available

da bwin： Throughout Manchester United's dismal season, Erik ten Hag has always had a go-to response whenever he has been questioned about his side's dreadful results and unconvincing performances: Injuries.

No one could argue that United have not had some big issues with personnel this season, but they are far from alone in that respect and are by no means the worst off. The Red Devils were ranked sixth in a table produced by Premier Injuries on January 8, with players missing a combined 710 days. Newcastle topped the table with 892 days missing, followed by Brentford, Brighton, Sheffield United and Chelsea.

More than any other manager in the Premier League, however, Ten Hag has used injuries to explain his team's woes. But now the cavalry is returning and the United side that will travel to Wolves on Thursday will be their strongest for a Premier League game since August.

So as they approach full-strength, will the Red Devils sink or swim?

Getty ImagesTen Hag's stock response

The Wolves game is United's first away game in the league since their demoralising 2-1 loss at Nottingham Forest on December 30, their fifth defeat of that month. After that game, Ten Hag rolled out his stock excuse to explain the team's problems.

"The injuries. Also some other issues but mainly the injuries hold us back in the process," the Dutchman said. "We haven't played with the same team in a row. We had to change again, so every time we have to swap our team. We had nine different partnerships at the back. That doesn't help or support the routines of the team and it explains why you are so inconsistent."

He did offer one positive note in an otherwise despondent discourse at the City Ground when he pointed out: "In January we have a lot of players returning, so then our levels can be higher."

AdvertisementGETTYEnd in sight to injury woes

The coach was getting a little bit ahead of himself, but one month on, United's long-running injury problems appear to be slowly drawing to an end. Lisandro Martinez made his first start in over four months against Newport County on Sunday, while Casemiro was back in the line-up for the first time in almost three months.

Luke Shaw was also looking back to full fitness after missing the defeat at Forest and Harry Maguire made his comeback from the bench after six weeks out. Marcus Rashford was absent in south Wales after his irresponsible nights out on the town in Belfast, but the player has admitted his mistake and after talks with Ten Hag, there is a desire to draw a line under the incident. Rashford will therefore be available for the trip to Molineux, where he scored the winning goal last season after being dropped from the starting line-up for missing a team meeting

There are still more players to come back, such as Mason Mount and Victor Lindelof, but United's squad is perhaps stronger than it has been all season, which means Ten Hag can now have no excuse if his team do not start firing.

GettyProblems began before the crisis

Despite the positive injury news, the inconvenient truth for Ten Hag and United fans is that even before the fitness problems began, his team hardly looked convincing. The manager had a near-full strength squad when the season began, with only new signing Rasmus Hojlund and the eternally injured Anthony Martial being out.

But the Red Devils got off to a wholly unconvincing start by scraping a 1-0 win at home to Wolves, benefitting from the visitors missing a slew of clear chances to score and not having a penalty awarded against them when Andre Onana clattered into Sasa Kalajdzic at the end of the game.

United were then beaten 2-0 at Tottenham, with Martinez being caught out for Pape Matar Sarr's opener and then scoring an own goal. Casemiro was also unconvincing in north London, and as the season developed he looked increasingly off-the pace, his 31 years and 60-plus matches per season played at the highest level with Real Madrid finally catching up with him.

Ten Hag described Casemiro and Martinez as "two class players who will bring the team forward", but they have both looked worlds apart from the inspirational operators they were last season. And there must be concern about Martinez after the Argentine underwent two foot operations in the space of five months to treat a fractured metatarsal.

Getty Images'Overperforming' last season

What has become increasingly clear throughout this injury-ravaged season is that Untied were remarkably fortunate to have most of their top players fit for the majority of last season, when they finished third in the Premier League and reached the finals of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, winning the latter.

Indeed, the wheels started to come off in that campaign after Martinez and Raphael Varane got injured in the Europa League quarter-final first leg against Sevilla. And Ten Hag has since acknowledged that his side were fortunate to do as well as they did.

"Last season, we were overperforming," he surprisingly admitted last week. "Now we have a downfall and we have to stop this, but I think it belongs to the project. When you're involved in top-level football, I think you know that you have to prove yourself every day – and that counts for everyone at this club too."