MANCHESTER UNITED are prepared to block requests from their players to leave in the January transfer window amid an expectant squad shortage.
Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirkzee have had limited playing time this season but both are in line for key roles around Christmas time.
United are due to be without influential forwards Bryan Mbeumo and Amad in December as they will almost certainly be called up by their nations for the Africa Cup of Nations.
Full back Noussair Mazraoui is also expected to report for host nation Morocco.
AFCON starts before Christmas this year, with Mbeumo and Amad likely to play for Cameroon and Ivory Coast on Christmas Eve.
The group stage ends on New Year’s Eve and the final is on January 18. The winter window closes at 7pm on February 2.
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United successfully delayed Andre Onana’s departure for the 2023-24 AFCON, although that tournament started in mid-January.
Goalkeeper Onana only missed one United match as the competition coincided with United’s winter break and Cameroon were knocked out in the round of 16.
The probable absences of top scorer Mbeumo, Amad and Mazraoui would deprive United of three options down their right-hand side.
Mbeumo has been in scintillating form since his £65million move from Brentford, scoring five goals.
The 26-year-old has linked up superbly with Amad, with the duo occupying the right-sided positions in manager Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 system.
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Mainoo, 21, has not started a Premier League match since May and his only start this term for United was in the League Cup defeat at fourth-tier Grimsby Town in August.
United rejected midfielder Mainoo’s request to leave the club on loan before the summer transfer window closed yet he is the only one of their five midfield options yet to line up in the league.
£36.5million flop Zirkzee has played 90 minutes across five appearances this term and last started for United in April.
Zirkzee, 24, suffered a hamstring injury six months ago and missed the entirety of pre-season through injury but his chances of regular football are remote at United.
Amorim does not consider Zirkzee to be an out-and-out striker and he has favoured the strikerless trio of Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Mason Mount in four of United’s nine league matches this term with Zirkzee available.
Summer signing Benjamin Sesko is United’s first-choice striker.
Zirkzee was used as one of the two playmakers in the second half of last season before he succumbed to injury.
Mainoo has started four games in the playmaker role under Amorim and is another option to offset the losses of Mbeumo and Amad.
When asked about the possibility of Mainoo and Zirkzee leaving in January, Amorim said: “I also know that in our club everything is a lot of noise.
“You have to have news. Players are not playing. They want to play. There’s a World Cup.
“There are agents that listen to the players talking all the time.
“I understand that but they are our players and we need everyone to have a good season.”
United deliberately whittled down their squad after they failed to qualify for Europe this season.
Amorim is operating with a 25-man squad but Lisandro Martinez is yet to resume team training as he continues to recover from an anterior cruciate ligament injury he suffered nine months ago.
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Tyrell Malacia was reintegrated into the first team training squad last month but is highly unlikely to play for the club again.
Seventeen-year-old striker Chido Obi is primarily training with the academy squad while teenage left back Diego Leon is yet to debut.
