United are focused on signing younger players with CEO Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox moving away from signing aging stars on inflated wages like the club did with Cristiano Ronaldo in 2021.

The recruitment drive is currently centred on strengthening the centre of midfield and increasing options at wing-back.

Ruben Amorim has provided a brief update on the state of his Manchester United squad, ahead of Monday’s meeting with Bournemouth at Old Trafford.

The mood around Carrington has been positive this week, following the 4-1 victory at Wolves, and the Reds are looking to make further progress when the south-coast club come to town, for what is our final home match before Christmas.

United will have to cope without central defenders Matthijs de Ligt and Harry Maguire, as they are still missing with injury.

Benjamin Sesko, meanwhile, has been suffering with illness this week and will have to be assessed before the decision is made over whether or not he can be involved.

“Maguire is out, De Ligt is out. Ben we have to see,” said Amorim.

“We have to see if he’s available. He had some [food] poisoning, but we’ll see. Let’s wait.

“We have two trainings still. The other two are out, Benjamin we will assess.”

Amorim later expanded on the nature of De Ligt’s injury, after he sat out of the draw against West Ham and Monday’s win at Molineux.

"I think he has something in his back, I don’t know for sure," he said.

"Sometimes you see it’s not a big injury because he finished the game quite well against Crystal Palace, but he has some pain.

"You sometimes think it will be solved during this week, but sometimes he feels a little bit of pain and we have to be a little careful with that."

Ruben Amorim says the club expect a decision on whether United's AFCON-bound players will be available to face Bournemouth in the next 36 hours.

Amad (Ivory Coast), Noussair Mazraoui (Morocco) and Bryan Mbeumo (Cameroon) have been called up by their respective nations for the tournament, which starts on Sunday 21 December.

The mandatory release date for clubs to release their African internationals is Monday 15 December, the same day that United are set to face Bournemouth at Old Trafford (20:00 GMT).

At the press conference to preview that match, which took place at Carrington on Friday, Amorim explained that there is a chance the players may be able to take part.

"We are still in conversation with national teams," began Amorim. "The game is Monday, they are here, they are training and we are trying to prepare all the scenarios to prepare the game.

"It’s frustrating, but nobody knows who’s going to play. It’s a good thing – we have players to cope with everything and that’s something [you get] with a long week, you can see a lot of things and work on several stuff to prepare the game."

Continuing on the subject of AFCON, Amorim revealed that there might be a different outcome for each player, given their countries have different fixture dates and maybe varying perspectives on the situation.

"I don’t know if it’s going to be the same situation [with each player]," said the boss. "It depends on the games of every national team. They have their ideas about when they want the players.

"I expect today to have a decision or maybe tomorrow, but we are waiting until the last moment to [see if we can] have all the players available, to choose the best team to start the game."

Once the trio arrive on African shores to take part in the tournament – which is being held in Morocco – they will play a minimum of three games.

That means Amad, Mazraoui and Mbeumo will definitely miss our Premier League fixtures against Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Wolves.

The AFCON final takes place on Sunday 18 January, so there is the additional possibility that some of the Reds involved could also miss our subsequent games against Leeds United, Burnley, Brighton & Hove Albion (Emirates FA Cup) and Manchester City.