There was a moment, a little over 10 minutes before his wearily predictable substitution, that summed up Alexis Sanchez’s latest misstep in a Manchester United shirt. Paul Pogba rolled a pass into the Chile striker’s feet but a poor first touch encouraged Ricardo Pereira, the Leicester City right back, to come and try to win the ball. Sanchez just about held on to it but then, inexplicably, played a short pass straight to a blue jersey. Mike Phelan, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s assistant, who was stood on the touchline, put his hand to his head, bemused, like so many of us, by what he had just seen.

Most of what Solskjaer is touching is turning to gold at United and this hard fought win at the King Power Stadium was another small step towards landing the manager’s job on a permanent basis but getting a tune out of Sanchez is clearly going to take a while longer. On this evidence, if he can make a world beater of the Premier League’s highest paid player again, he really might be the man to take United forward in the longer-term.

There was a pat on Sanchez’s back from Solskjaer as he trudged off in the 67th minute but, to judge by the way the player threw his gloves down before taking to his seat on the bench, he is as frustrated as anyone. There was hope a well taken goal in the impressive 3-1 FA Cup win at Arsenal nine days ago might lift Sanchez, who was making his first league start under Solskjaer here with Anthony Martial only deemed fit enough for the substitutes’ bench. But this was as painfully ineffective a performance as any Sanchez has produced in his miserable 12 months at Old Trafford, and there have been plenty.