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.

The Premier League team has now been further thrown into difficulty during what has been a terrible start to the season because the hosts needed their captain to step up and take command, but he simply did not.

The club’s earlier loss to Bayern Munich has ensured that Ten Hag’s team has a lot to do in the next four group games with their Champions League aspirations in particular. It remains to be seen if United may experience even lower lows during the coming months..