This morning’s reports are stating that Luis Nani will miss the next three games for Manchester United. This comes after the Portuguese winger suffered a deep gash in his leg from a wild Jamie Carragher “tackle†in the 3-1 defeat at Liverpool on Sunday.
If the reports are to be believed, Fantasy Managers should remain calm, given that the three games in question only include one in the Premier League – the gameweek 30 home clash with Bolton on March 19. The other fixtures involved are the FA Cup clash with Arsenal on Saturday and the Champions League second-leg tie with Marseille the following Tuesday.
In addition, should United draw against Arsenal on Saturday, the replay will postpone the visit of Bolton. That would hand United a blank in gameweek 30, giving Nani more time to recover. The suggestion is that Nani will be back in contention for a return for the trip to West Ham on April 2 in gameweek 31. There’s every possibility then that he will not miss any Premier League action should today’s reports be confirmed.
Any prolonged period of absence for Nani would have huge impact on the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game. The midfielder is currently owned by over 47.9% of Fantasy Managers and has already fetched 165 FPL points this season. So far however, given today’s reports, it seems unlikely that we will witness big sales of a player who has arguably been the key performer in our Fantasy seasons.
Having said that, Nani is currently topping the FPL rankings for “Transfers Out†amongst the midfielders – over 13,000 have so far got rid leading up to the gameweek 30 deadline on March 19. Presumably these Fantasy Managers have not had to suffer a significant loss of funds as a result of shedding Nani – a player who has risen to 10.1 from his starting value of just 8.0 in the FPL.
We are still awaiting official news from the United camp. But, with Alex Ferguson’s apparent reluctance to cooperate with the media at present, Nani’s own Twitter feed may prove a more significant source. Yesterday he shared this with his ‘followers’:
“thank you for your support after my injure. i hope to be back really soon.”
We await further updates.
