It is now just shy of one month until the Qatar World Cup, with the final round of Premier League fixtures ahead of the mid-season break less than four weeks away.
The competition's unprecedented timing in the British winter is a widely renowned inconvenience for players and coaches at clubs and for the nations involved. England manager Gareth Southgate for one is already being dealt a headache with right-backs Kyle Walker and Reece James both injured at present.
But it isn't just the national teams that will be fretting over injuries in the coming weeks. The period that clubs are presently in the midst of has been dreaded for a while, with one of the most congested months in modern football history in terms of the sheer number of matches now underway.
Now more than ever, the depth of squads, especially among sides involved European competition, will be rigorously tested.
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Manchester United still have eight matches to fulfil in advance of the World Cup, including their crucial final two Europa League group stage matches and a third round Carabao Cup tie against Aston Villa. United haven't had a free midweek slot since prior to the most recent international break, and their next won't come until the resumption of club football in late December.
Erik ten Hag's squad management is being put to the test already, and that will only be exacerbated in the run-up to the squad breaking up next month. He has recently spoken about wanting to field his strongest squad in every match, which is understandable given the need to build momentum in the league plus the necessity of finishing top of their Europa League in order to prevent a play-off round against a third-place Champions League side.
However, across the incoming flux of matches, it won't be sustainable to field the same core of players in each and every game. While continuity is significant, especially for a new manager still trying to establish his strongest side, running players into the ground and causing injuries won't allow for the establishment of continuity anyway.
Ten Hag will have to learn to trust and use his squad in near enough its entirety. But it isn't quite as easy as that.
Both Christian Eriksen and Marcus Rashford missed out on the starting side against Newcastle United at the weekend due to illness, with the former absent from the squad and the latter "under the weather" but fit enough to make the bench. It is fair to say United missed the pair as starters, which won't have encouraged Ten Hag.
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On the face of things, Fred deputising for Eriksen wasn't a disaster. Fred was regarded as having improved substantially throughout regular playing time last year. Additionally, he started alongside Casemiro in midfield, with whom he has built a starting partnership for the Brazilian national team - one of the favourites to win the upcoming World Cup.
But it didn't go swimmingly at all for Fred, who also started against Omonia Nicosia at Old Trafford last Thursday as Eriksen was handed a rare rest. You could see why Ten Hag had been so resistant to withdrawing Eriksen from the starting side, with Fred unable to take on the burden of operating in the play-making midfield role integral to the functionality of Ten Hag's system.
You could see Fred often had the right intentions, but the execution of his passes, for example, was poor. As a result, United's security in possession fell comparative to the majority of matches that Eriksen has featured in so far this campaign, with a number of turnovers that won't have pleased Ten Hag.
Especially in the first half, United failed to sustain any sort of control of the match, with Newcastle often on the front foot and able to create opportunities when they had possession. United could count themselves lucky that they didn't fall behind in affairs after Joelinton hit the bar and post with successive headers following a Kieran Trippier free-kick.
Also in Eriksen's absence, United's volume of creation was noticeably diminished. And when attacks looked promising, the case was often that they broke down.
It took 38 minutes for United to achieve their first shot on target, which Antony put straight at Nick Pope after Jadon Sancho - starting in place of Rashford - played him into space inside the penalty area. They would go on to achieve only one further shot on target en-route to a goalless draw.
United's reliance on a 30-year-old signed on a free transfer is concerning, and it speaks to the requirement for back-up options that fit in the profile of a ball-playing midfielder. It will be interesting to see if Ten Hag opts to use Donny van de Beek on a more frequent basis once he has recovered from his current muscular injury given his technical superiority over Fred.
"He had a pre-season that was quite okay, and his chances will come," Ten Hag said on the subject of Van de Beek a couple of weeks ago. "When he came on against Brighton as a substitute, he did very well. But you have to be available."
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United's creative issues were somewhat quelled once Rashford was introduced around the 70-minute mark, with an added dimension of attacking fluidity as he replaced Cristiano Ronaldo to form an attack with Sancho and Antony.
Ronaldo did have an impact on proceedings early in the second half, centre of a controversial moment as he took the ball off Pope, who was poised to take a free-kick from deep inside his own half; Ronaldo claimed that Fabian Schar had taken the kick already, but the referee didn't entertain the idea. This came after Ronaldo had the ball in the back of the net but had been ruled offside.
Otherwise, though, Ronaldo had again been a reason for some attacks breaking down as he failed to quite get on the same wavelength as he team-mates at times. The improvement once Rashford entered the fray once again emphasised United's lack of depth in terms of players able to provide almost like-for-like impacts as alternative options.
Rashford was involved twice in the closing stages as United twice came close to winning the match. He rounded Pope and squared the ball to Fred, who missed a gilt-edged chance with the goalkeeper out of his net. Then Rashford himself, with essentially the final action of the match, found space in the penalty box to latch onto a Casemiro cross only to put his header wide.
Painstakingly for United, when they improved in the second half, able to take the game to a Newcastle side content to sit deep, the execution of opportunities wavered in a vein similar to that against Omonia - even if not quite to the same extent in terms of the number of chances. "We broke them, we didn't kill them," Ten Hag said.
United have only scored 18 goals from 199 shots in all competitions so far this season, with their conversion rate reading only nine per cent.
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Given Rashford's impact off the bench, it was a shame for Ten Hag that he didn't feel he had the personnel to make any further substitutions. In fairness, there were injury absentees in addition to the unwell Eriksen - namely Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Van de Beek and Anthony Martial - which left him limited.
But still, United's bench shouldn't have to consist of four players under the age of 20 years old that aren't necessarily viewed by the manager as first team ready yet; Kobbie Mainoo (17), Alejandro Garnacho (18) and Zidane Iqbal (19) were all in the squad on Sunday. Facundo Pellistri and Anthony Elanga, both 20, were other unused options in addition to Victor Lindelof and Tyrell Malacia.
It shouldn't be the case that a few injuries leave Ten Hag with minimal options other than those that he favours as starters. Fred could easily have been replaced at half-time, but a lack of first-team ready options to be introduced in his place saw him complete the full 90 minutes.
The chances are that Ten Hag may have to be bold and turn to some of his more youthful assets in the next few weeks. But, more than anything, there is growing proof that there is still a distance to go in terms of building the squad up and adding more quality in depth.
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