Little seemingly went right for the Portugal international yesterday, with Luckhurst writing on Twitter that it had been the 29-year-old “at his worst”, as he was regularly “looking to blame others” despite his own shortcomings.

While the former Sporting CP ace was shifted out onto the right flank in order to accommodate the returning Hannibal Mejbri, that should not excuse what was largely an erratic showing from the outset, as the playmaker squandered possession on 26 occasions as a sign of his woes.

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Bruno missed the ball at the beginning of the match

That metric is usually rather misleading as the £240k-per-week maestro regularly looks to create chances for his teammates and so thus can be understandably reckless on the ball, yet in this instance there was little of his usual flair – despite making two key passes.

The unorthodox wideman failed to complete any of his nine attempted crosses and fired three shots wide on the night, having also been something of a liability defensively after winning just five of his ten total duels.

Such an uncharacteristically poor performance from the United talisman was encapsulated late on as he fired a volleyed effort straight into the arms of opposition ‘keeper, Fernando Muslera, having earlier failed to convert after a clever pullback from the influential Hojlund.

In truth, on an occasion in which the hosts needed their captain to step up and take charge, he simply did not, with the Premier League outfit having now been plunged even further into crisis amid what has been a woeful start to the season.

In terms of their Champions League ambitions in particular, the club’s previous loss to Bayern Munich has insured that Ten Hag’s men have it all to do in the final four group games, with it still to be seen if United can fall to even lower lows during the ensuing months.