Injury expert Ben Dinnery believes that a number of Manchester United players are putting themselves at risk of injury with their individual off-season programmes, as per Football Insider.

The Lowdown: Five United players training individually

Erik ten Hag took his first training session as Red Devils manager towards the end of June, although a number of players were still off due to their previous international commitments.

Football Insider noted that Marcus Rashford, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Eric Bailly, Jadon Sancho and Axel Tuanzebe have all documented their individual off-season training programmes on social media. As expected, that off-season training wasn’t under the guidance of United officials.

The Latest: Dinnery shocked

Dinnery, who contributes to Sky Sports, was talking to Football Insider regarding the risk involved in off-season training without supervision.

He labelled it as ‘mind-blowing’ and ‘scary’ and couldn’t believe that players are allowed to ‘do whatever with whoever’.

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Dinnery stated of the five United players named:

“It’s pretty mind-blowing. We see these players go away and do their own programmes but not all of them are club-led, which I find unfathomable. Players are allowed to go off and do whatever with whoever.

“You see these Instagram videos with exercises that you question the functionality of. Is it all for social media? Do these trainers have the pre-requisite qualifications?

“Working in elite sport, you need to understand the player’s specific needs and their history.

“On top of that, you’re talking about working with multi-million-pound players. Do they have the right insurance for that? If they are injured, who is culpable? This is something that needs to be managed a lot more strictly.

“Ultimately, these players are assets and they need to come back to pre-season in peak condition.

“Simon Brundish did some analysis and he reckoned there were about 144 players that he was aware of who were at the time undertaking some sort of off-season programme.

“Only one of those was certified through the relevant strength and conditioning associations. That’s scary.”

The Verdict: Caution needed

It’s encouraging to see that a number of United players are trying hard to keep themselves in shape ahead of the new era under Ten Hag.

However, as Dinnery mentions, players’ specific requirements need to be taken into consideration, and if those aren't followed, then there’s every chance that an injury could occur.

A number of United's international players returned on Monday, so the club should now have full control over what each player does heading into the new season.

Come next summer, it could be wise to have more concrete training plans in place for the off-season.