Manchester United’s Diogo Dalot could miss rest of season with calf injury

By Simon Peach, PA Chief Football Writer

Ruben Amorim has revealed Manchester United full-back Diogo Dalot has suffered a potentially-season ending calf injury.

The 26-year-old has made 51 appearances for the Red Devils this season in all competitions, missing just one match through suspension.

Dalot came off the bench in Sunday’s 1-0 loss against Wolves as Amorim looked to manage his minutes with the crucial Europa League semi-final against Athletic Bilbao looming large.

However, the versatile full-back has picked up a muscle injury that threatens to bring his campaign to a premature end.

“Diogo Dalot is out,” boss Amorim said ahead of Sunday’s Premier League trip to Bournemouth.

“We don’t know how long he’s going to be out, but he’s out for these games, next games. We’ll see until the end.”

Asked if Dalot could miss the rest of the season, he said: “There is that possibility, but I don’t know.

“We’ll check week by week because he works really hard, he can recover quite well. We will see.

“He has something in his muscle, in his calf. He had a sequence of games that he played all the time.

“We tried to manage but some of the players have to play a lot of minutes, and we have to protect the ones that we think that they are not so ready to cope with that but Dalot felt something.”

United have eight more matches this season if they earn a return to Bilbao for the Europa League final and are seeing some other issues ease.

“Amad (Diallo) is near,” Amorim said. “Mattha (Matthijs de Ligt) is near but the rest is at the same pace. Ayden (Heaven) is not ready, so I think that’s it.”

United limp into the weekend 14th in the Premier League as preparations for next season continue in the background.

Pushed on whether he knows the players he would like to sell and keep this summer, Amorim said: “Yeah, I could say that.

“Of course this is a conversation for the end of the week, but I have an idea that is clear because we have to do things early. But things can change until the end of the season.”

Wolves forward Matheus Cunha is among United’s targets but Amorim was unwilling to talk about the Brazil international.

“I will not say nothing about Matheus because if I say one time I will have to say for any situation whether that it’s yes or no, so I will not comment about that,” he said.

“We are focused on this season. Even the way we are going to prepare the next season could change in these games, so it’s hard to predict what is going to happen in the future.”

United need to win the Europa League to secure European football next term, with Champions League qualification the reward for a side that has struggled domestically.

Asked how big an attraction the club are given that backdrop, Amorim said: “It’s Manchester United.

“What I feel is that there’s a lot of players that want to play for our club. I know that if you look at our club in the moment it looks like sometimes with all the problems with the staff, people going, changing coach, the results, it looks a little bit of a problem in the moment.

“But we have a clear idea and that is the easiest part to explain for a player. And then it’s Manchester United and every player wants to play for Manchester United.”