Manchester United's new £52m defender Leny Yoro has been ruled out for three months and striker Rasmus Hojlund will miss six weeks with injuries they suffered in Saturday’s pre-season game with Arsenal.
Sources confirmed the news just over an hour before United’s 3-2 victory over La Liga side Real Betis in San Diego.
Both men were forced off in the first half of the 2-1 defeat at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Yoro was filmed at United’s training base at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), on Tuesday wearing a protective boot and using crutches.
That sparked fears of a major injury and those concerns have now been realised, with 18-year-old Yoro set to be out until the end of October.
That would mean he misses nine Premier League games, including matches against Liverpool, Tottenham and Aston Villa, and the start of United’s Europa League and Carabao Cup campaigns.
Yoro will have further tests when he returns to the UK to determine the precise extent of the problem, although he will stay with the United party for the remainder of their US trip, which concludes against Liverpool in Columbia, South Carolina, on Saturday.
Hojlund scored United’s opener at the weekend but he succumbed to a hamstring problem and will be sidelined until after the September international break, meaning he will miss the Liverpool game at Old Trafford on 1 September.
It remains to be seen whether the news injects fresh life into ongoing efforts to sign Jarred Branthwaite from Everton or Matthijs de Ligt from Bayern Munich given previous United approaches for both players already this summer.
BBC