Where is Manchester United’s Tyrell Malacia?

It is the question that has hung over Manchester United’s injury-plagued season: where exactly is Tyrell Malacia?

Malacia has not played for Erik ten Hag’s side since undergoing surgery on a knee meniscus injury last summer. Although initially pencilled in to return during the autumn, he is now not expected to play until next season.

Other players with the same injury have returned quicker. Amad suffered a meniscus injury during pre-season and spent five months on the sidelines before returning in December.

It was around that time that United terminated Sergio Reguilon’s loan from Tottenham Hotspur, hopeful that Malacia and first-choice Luke Shaw would soon be fully fit and competing for the left-back spot.

While Shaw made a brief return to action from muscle and hamstring issues before succumbing to injury once more, Malacia is still absent.

In February, Ten Hag offered a positive update on Malacia’s progress, claiming that the 24-year-old had “turned a point” and it would not be long before he returned to team training. A few weeks later, the United manager sounded more pessimistic.

“It’s going to be difficult for him this season to be available,” Ten Hag said. “He will fight. He’s back on the pitch, but not in the team and the process had setbacks. He’s going forwards really slowly and the season is coming to an end.”

Ten Hag believes the importance of Malacia’s absence has been underestimated and views it as a key factor in United’s struggles. After arriving from Feyenoord as the first signing of the Ten Hag era in a €17million deal, Malacia provided a dependable back-up for the injury-prone Shaw last season.

Ten Hag welcomes Malacia to Old Trafford in the summer of 2022 (Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

This season without Malacia in reserve, Shaw has not always been able to be rotated while fit. And with both left-backs unavailable for large stretches, Ten Hag has started without a natural, recognised left-back in 22 of their 43 games.

Malacia’s unfortunate injury and a rehabilitation process that has proved more complex than expected has become a problem that Ten Hag has failed to solve.

Malacia made 39 appearances for United last season and was only missing from the matchday squad once.

That was the day of United’s trip to Nottingham Forest in April. “He has a sore knee and he was struggling in the week,” Ten Hag said before kick-off, despite Malacia playing the full 90 minutes of a 2-2 draw with Sevilla in the Europa League only a few days earlier. “It was too bad to start.”

Malacia had first started to feel pain in his left knee earlier that year but, eager to impress and keep playing, he did not immediately report his complaint to the club. When he informed United’s medical staff in the spring, a decision was taken to manage the injury to allow him to keep playing.

After not making the squad against Forest, Malacia was named among the substitutes for the second leg against Sevilla later that week, then returned to the pitch with a late cameo during the FA Cup semi-final penalty shootout win over Brighton & Hove Albion the following Sunday.

He made another five appearances before the end of the season and, although an unused substitute in the FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City, he played the full 90 minutes of the 2-1 win over Fulham on the final day of the Premier League season.

Ten months on, that is Malacia’s most recent appearance for United. His last minutes of any kind came in the Netherlands’ 4-2 defeat to Croatia in the Nations League semi-finals in June. He was an unused substitute in the third-place play-off.

Malacia on Netherlands duty with Lutsharel Geertruida last June (Christof Koepsel/Getty Images)

Malacia returned to training at Carrington on July 15 along with other United players who had been involved in end-of-season internationals.

With his knee still causing discomfort, a decision was made to undergo surgery. United announced that Malacia would not travel as part of their squad for the pre-season tour of the United States.

United proposed a surgeon in London but Malacia wished to undergo treatment in the Netherlands with his own choice of surgeon. United agreed to that request and Malacia travelled home for the operation, which was conducted outside of the club’s oversight.

Once back in Manchester, Malacia began gradually working his way back to fitness. In October, he took part in an individual session at Carrington before the visit of Copenhagen in the Champions League in full view of journalists.

Yet scans on the affected knee had revealed that small fragments of cartilage remained around the meniscus.

A decision had to be made. Representatives of the club and player sought opinions on how to proceed and were given two options: to undergo corrective surgery to remove the cartilage fragments or leave them be and continue with the rehabilitation programme as planned.

Each approach carried pros and cons. Another operation would clear the fragments but every surgery carries risks and, even if successful, would mean starting Malacia’s rehabilitation from scratch.

Proceeding without further surgery would not interrupt Malacia’s rehabilitation and would hopefully allow the cartilage to go away naturally, although there were no guarantees it would.

A decision was taken to proceed with corrective surgery. The operation was carried out in November by the same surgeon responsible for the first, with representatives from United overseeing it.

In December, United confirmed that Malacia had undergone a second operation following “a setback during his rehabilitation, which required further surgery”. Malacia was “on course to return to action early next year”, the club said.

With Malacia still sidelined, what counts as ‘early next year’?

Ten Hag said last month that, following internal talks with United’s medical and performance staff, he was given the impression that Shaw and Malacia would be fit to return “in January”, hence the decision to terminate Reguilon’s loan.

“They assured me they (Shaw and Malacia) will both be fit in January and so you will have two left full-backs. Then you have a third one, so I would always have to disappoint one full-back,” he said.

But although there was optimism among some at United that Malacia could return in January, the club’s statement was carefully worded — “early next year” rather than “in the New Year” — to account for uncertainty.

Malacia has been much missed (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

Even so it is now April — beyond “early next year” by any measure — and Malacia’s recovery has continued to be much slower than hoped.

To make matters worse, the void of information around his absence has been filled by bizarre, fanciful and inaccurate conspiracy theories on social media.

Malacia has been largely quiet online himself, not posting to his X and Instagram accounts since last summer. He has, however, appeared in posts modelling clothing for ForevaDifferent, a fashion brand owned by a childhood friend, with the most recent being posted on February 3.

Despite the gossip, intrigue and conspiracy spreading, the delay to his return is overwhelmingly down to the complications that can arise with any injury, particularly with a joint as complex as the knee.

But even if Malacia’s recovery has been unfortunate, there is a sense that the parties involved could have done things differently to have ensured an earlier return.

At United, there are questions over Malacia’s visit to the Netherlands last summer and whether the correct procedures were followed in the initial stages of his rehabilitation while the player was not under the club’s watch. Malacia failed to contact the club and update them on his progress regularly.

Those close to Malacia admit the player did not regularly communicate with the club while in the Netherlands, but insist that he did not do any training or rehabilitation work last summer as he was still walking on crutches and recovering from surgery.

Rather than any missteps in the initial stages of his rehabilitation, others, at least partly, put Malacia’s delayed return down to United’s medical department not always having the capacity to give the player the level of attention required.

United’s busy schedule of fixtures, particularly in the first half of the campaign, is said to have meant that Malacia was at times only able to take part in rehabilitation work four days a week, with the other three taken up by matches or staff days off.

This season’s consistently long injury list at Old Trafford has been a factor, sometimes stretching the medical department’s resources. Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, have indicated that other players set to return sooner have sometimes had to take priority over Malacia.

United insist that no strategic decision was made on Malacia’s rehabilitation at any point and are fully confident in the care and support that the player has received from the medical department.

The restructuring of United’s medical set-up under new club doctor Gary O’Driscoll is unrelated to Malacia’s lengthy lay-off and there is consensus that improvements have been made since O’Driscoll started in September.

Nevertheless, Malacia has been rehabilitating away from Carrington in recent weeks as he nears the end of his recovery. The 24-year-old has instead been training abroad, travelling between Barcelona and the Netherlands to work with external rehabilitation specialists agreed by the club and player.

Both parties are now focused on Malacia returning to full fitness as soon as possible, with United receiving regular reports and feedback on his progress. He is back at Carrington this week but will continue to work with an external specialist and travel between Manchester, Barcelona and his home country until he is ready to join team training.

That is still a few weeks away, while Malacia is only expected to complete his recovery towards the very end of the season. Most importantly, it is expected to be a full recovery and not set to have a long-term impact.

Still, his long-awaited return to playing will almost certainly have to wait until pre-season at the earliest. By that time, United, Ten Hag and a young player who made a promising start to his Old Trafford career will have lost a year’s worth of football to a cruel injury and a complicated, imperfect rehabilitation process.

(Gareth Copley/Getty Images)