DIOGO DALOT could miss the rest of Manchester United’s season after suffering a calf injury.
The wing-back is ruled out of Sunday’s Premier League trip to Bournemouth and is a major doubt for both legs of the Europa League semi-final against Athletic Bilbao – the first leg is on Thursday in Spain.
In an injury-plagued season for United, Dalot has been one of their most reliable players fitness-wise.
The Portugal international, 26, has made more starts than any other United player and has featured in 51 of the club’s 52 games in all competitions – plus seven more for his country.
But boss Ruben Amorim fears his compatriot’s heavy work load has finally caught up with him.
Amorim said: “Diogo is out. We don’t know how long he’s going to be out but he’s out for these next games.”
Asked if he will miss the rest of the campaign, the manager added: “There is that possibility but I don’t know.
“We’ll check week by week because he works really hard and he recovers quite well but we’ll see.
“He has a problem with his muscle in his calf. He had a sequence of games, he played all the time.
“We tried to manage it but some of the players have to play a lot of minutes and we have to protect the ones that we think are not so ready to cope with that, but Dalot felt something.”
Better news for goal-shy United is that Amad Diallo – who has scored nine this season – could be fit for the Bilbao game after making a quicker than expected recovery from damaged ankle ligaments.
The injury has kept him out of action since February 7 and it was feared he would be out for the season.
Centre-back Matthijs De Ligt is also closing in on a return with Amorim saying: “Amad is near and so is Matha [De Ligt].”
But young defender Ayden Heaven is still some way off a return after injuring his knee in the 3-0 win at Leicester last month.
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