Ashley Young Injured: What Does This Mean For Manchester United Moving Forward?

Manchester United is comfortably atop the English Premier League standings but is expected to be without one of their top players for the next few matches.

The 27-year-old winger Ashley Young suffered an ankle injury in a 2-1 loss to Manchester City on Monday, as the Telegraph reports. "Ashley is out," said Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. "He will maybe miss two weeks."

The good news for Man U is that their lead in the Premier League standings seems to be insurmountable, as second place Manchester City is a whopping 12 points behind with only a handful of matches remaining.

While the injury to Young isn't something United wanted moving forward, Yahoo sports reports that United is beginning to get healthy on the defensive side despite the loss of Young. Center back Nemanja Vidic will be returning from a calf injury and defender Jonny Evans is expected to reenter the lineup after missing the last 2 games with a sore hamstring.

Manchester United finished second to champion Manchester City in Premier League play last season. With 12 titles since the 1992-93 season, including a championship victory in 2011 over Chelsea, Manchester United is well on their way to claiming another title.

Getting healthy across the board will be the first step in winning their second title in three seasons and even though the loss of Young for at least the next 3 games isn't ideal, United is getting healthy in other key areas.

This can only spell trouble for the rest of the league, including defending champion Manchester City.