Garnacho joins ‘world-class’ Man Utd star in PL quintet set to be dropped for injury returnees | OneFootball

The international break is of no consequence to England and therefore of even less interest to us – and we suspect the majority of you – than usual.

But while Premier League managers will be keeping a beady eye on their players’ involvement with a view to injuries and ‘red zones’, the awfully frustrating hiatus does also mean we look set to see a glut of star players returning in short order when club competition resumes.

Good for them, their managers, their clubs and for us watching, but not good for those players who have reaped the reward of their absence through increased game time.

And we’ve come up with five players we believe are set to be dropped when the Premier League returns for their superior, more decisive or just plain better at football teammates.

Alejandro Garnacho (Chelsea)

The jury was still out on Garnacho ahead of the 3-0 win over Wolves and still is because it was a 3-0 win over Wolves: two-point, managerless Wolves who were about as there for the taking as one of the unfortunate women starring opposite Liam Neeson in poorly directed action thrillers.

But the £40m summer signing did produce two excellent and very different assists in that game, dinking a delightful cross in for Malo Gusto with his right foot and then embarrassing Santiago Bueno with some very impressive dribbling at speed before squaring the ball for Pedro Neto with his left.

Enzo Maresca has nothing but good things to say about Garnacho’s work-rate in training and in games, which is entirely at odds with the views of former boss Ruben Amorim, and the Argentina international has been clear of Jamie Gittens in the Premier League pecking order even while returning to peak match sharpness having missed out on a proper pre-season at Manchester United.

But Cole Palmer will soon return from injury, obviously plays in Chelsea’s best team as Chelsea’s most influential attacking player, and we have Garnacho as the player to make way.

Enzo Fernandez has been excellent in the No.10 role in Palmer’s absence and Chelsea look far better with Moises Caicedo and either Reece James or Romeo Lavia in the pivot behind him. Which means Palmer may revert to the right, where he has arguably been at his most devastating for Chelsea anyway.

It would then be a straight toss-up between Pedro Neto and Garnacho on the left, and Neto wins that battle as thing stand, even if it’s not his best position.

Luke Shaw (Manchester United)

Luke Shaw has found himself back in that very Luke Shaw groove of not drawing any attention himself, with that cloak of invisibility a key sign of rhythm that escaped him for much of last season and with just as much regularity as these periods of tranquility in what no-one can quite believe is now an 11-year Manchester United career.

Amorim can be credited with the 30-year-old’s uptick in form, for playing him on the left of his three centre-backs to save his patched-up Lego legs, and for his man-management of a player whose produced his best form under those who nurture and hail his good qualities rather than calling him a big ol’ fatty a la Jose Mourinho.

“Luke Shaw is a world-class player,” Amorim said in July amid talk over Shaw leaving the club. “That is my feeling. You can feel it in the small things; when he touches the ball, the ability to play one against one.”

It’s not at all clear who Amorim would favour between Shaw and Lisandro Martinez, who is now back in training, as they have never been fit at the same time in Amorim’s year-long stint.

And feels like a choice between the seven out of ten, know-what-you’re-getting Shaw and more of an X-factor player in Lisandro Martinez, who’s a man for big moments but can also make horrendous ricks, particularly when not having played for a while.

Amorim doing “something different” against Tottenham, which paid off until he made a mess of things with his substitutions, suggests he’s (finally) reached a point with this United squad where he can be slightly more adventurous, and Martinez represents a risk which admittedly could rock the boat too much but could also be a point of difference to take them to the next level.

Giorgi Mamardashvili (Liverpool)

What if the Liverpool crisis wasn’t down to too much change too soon, Florian Wirtz being a cowardly lion, Arne Slot being a big bald fraud, Mohamed Salah’s legs going or Virgil van Dijk blaming everyone but himself, but was in fact down to the supposed best back-up goalkeeper in the Premier League in fact being such a poor stand-in for Alisson that he’s brought about the demise of this once-great football club all on his own.

Only Caoimhin Kelleher and Jose Sa are below Mamardashvili in the Premier League goalkeeper ranking, and we suspect we would have to go back an awfully long way to find a Liverpool player with less than 0.6 points per game (PPG). Alisson has 2.5 PPG this season.

Richarlison (Tottenham)

Like a 2024/2025 version of Erling Haaland, Richarlison stood up front doing sweet F-all against Manchester United, but who cares if he scores the winner? Not actually the winner though, despite a celebration to the contrary, and he also missed – not just the goal but the ball – when handed a huge chance to open the scoring in the first half and has nothing close to Haaland’s goal record besides to merit his inclusion in the team.

Thomas Frank’s problem is that Tottenham appear to have signed a collection of strikers who were at one point billed as stars of the future but are undergoing a collective mask-slip in north London to expose them as overrated frauds.

The degree with which Randal Kolo Muani doesn’t want to be at Tottenham is comical and Mathys Tel’s sole method of scoring goals is via massive deflections, meaning Richarlison is essentially keeping his place by default until Dominic Solanke returns.

Frank didn’t fancy Solanke before his ankle injury, handing him only brief substitute appearances in the two Premier League games for which he was fit at the start of the season. But while the 28-year-old is far from a polished finisher and we suspect a new striker will be high on Spurs’ list of priorities in 2026, he at the very least occupies defenders and opens up space for the players around him, and something is better than the nothing Richarlison typically provides.

Eberechi Eze (Arsenal)

It’s difficult for us not to allow our appreciation for Eze – we love the guy – to influence our opinion of him. Everything he does on a football pitch, including for Arsenal this season, looks so gloriously effortless and we can’t help but be drawn to him on the basis of everything he does and says off it too. What a guy.

But, but, he hasn’t been all that great, has he? It’s too early to tell if his relative lack of impact at Arsenal is down to their style in comparison to that of Crystal Palace, but Mikel Arteta is very unlikely to persist with an aesthetically pleasing footballer as a manager who’s all about getting the edge over teams by any means possible.

Martin Odegaard was a bit pants last season compared to his standout displays the season before, but he was back at his peak against Olympiacos, splitting them open at will, before this latest injury. And remarkably the captain has 19 shot-creating actions in just 294 minutes of action this season, compared to Eze’s 27 in 1,147 minutes.