International friendlies are an increasingly becoming a major pain in the ass for clubs everywhere, and England internationals in particular seem to always result in a Premier League team losing an important player for some time.
Liverpool fans will no full well how every time Daniel Sturridge so much as puts on some England training gear he ends up sidelined for months, but it's Manchester United fans who will now be pissed off with Roy Hodgson after Michael Carrick picked up a nasty looking injury in an utterly pointless friendly with Spain.
Carrick played the full 90 minutes of the friendly, but twisted his ankle in additional time and was replaced by Jonjo Shelvey. Hodgson has since spoken about the extent of the injury which is not going to sound good for Manchester United fans:
Michael Carrick doesn't look good.
He's got a severely twisted ankle which normally means ligament damage. We won't know that of course until he's had an X-ray or a scan tomorrow, but it doesn't look good.
A bad ankle ligament injury could mean anything from weeks to months out injured, and the first question that springs to mind is what the hell was a 34 year old midfielder who has been used sparingly by his club this season doing playing a full 90 minutes in a pointless friendly?
Hodgson clearly doesn't need to see what Carrick can offer, whereas the likes of Delle Alli, Eric Dier, and of course Shelvey all on the bench surely would have benefited from the playing time in an England team.
Louis Van Gaal will most likely be very unimpressed with the decision to play Carrick for so long, and now he will have to cope without the veteran who has been sharing an organisational role at heart of United's midfield with Bastian Schweinsteiger.
