This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but it does not influence our editorial judgment.
Man Utd centre-back Matthijs de Ligt explains why he was forced to undergo surgery on his back.
The Dutchman has been trying to regain fitness since last November, but following the announcement that he would undergo surgery, he said:
“After 6 months of treatment and working hard to recover, surgery was the only option left.
“I’m disappointed not to have been able to help the team in the last 6 months and obviously missed the World Cup, but I’m looking forward to doing everything to get back in front of the fans and feeling even better.”
De Ligt will not be ready for pre-season
Man Utd’s official statement said that the 26-year-old hopes to return to action in the “early stages of the 2026/27 season.”
This means that de Ligt will most likely not feature in the first game of the new season, as his recovery from surgery will take months.
The Netherlands international has been out of action for almost half a year, last playing against Crystal Palace in a 2-1 win at Selhurst Park.
This latest setback suggests that he will probably be out for a total of between 9 and 11 months if he returns in August, September or October, which is the current estimate given by the club.
Buy the new Man Utd 2026/27 home shirt from Fanatics here
Will Man Utd now sign a centre-back?
The injury blow may cause the Red Devils to reassess their summer transfer plans. Director of Football Jason Wilcox has considered several options to strengthen the defensive midfield – Tottenham’s Micky van de Ven and Nottingham Forest’s Murillo.
A “background check” was reportedly conducted in the pair, but it was decided that there was sufficient depth at centre-back. There may be a change in stance following this latest news about de Ligt.
Want more news about Man Utd? Add Man U News as a preferred source on Google
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
