Of all the things that have gone wrong for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - and you need a calculator to tot them up now - the sight of Scott McTominay clutching his knee in the dressing room at half-time of the Boxing Day victory over Newcastle United must have left a particularly nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Manchester United’s problems are widespread and deep-rooted, and the reality is the club may not have the right people in the right places to fix too many of them. But there are two scenarios the manager must have been dreading privately as he battles to prevent a season that always threatened to be a struggle from descending into calamity. The first was a bad injury to Marcus Rashford, the second the loss of McTominay for any sustained period of time.

United’s summer transfer window, which was strangely heralded as a success internally when most on the outside could see the cracks already forming, gave Solskjaer absolutely no wriggle room. With Ander Herrera and, before him, Marouane Fellaini not replaced in a position where United were already deficient, it simply did not allow for an injury to McTominay, particularly not at a time when his other star midfielder, Paul Pogba, wants out. How can that be at a club of this size with a wage bill larger than any of their Premier League competitors?