Since his Р’Р€40 million move from Ajax in September last year, van de Beek has started just four Premier League games and managed only 15 minutes in the competition this season. Even as results have faltered, performances worsened and the defeats stacked up (six in 12 matches), Solskjaer has remained loyal to largely the same group of players and any changes have tended to be enforced, such as injuries to Raphael Varane and Victor Lindelof handing Eric Bailly an opportunity.

Van de Beek is unlikely to be getting his hopes up, though. The form of both aside, McTominay missed ScotlandРІР‚в„ўs World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Denmark with a throat virus. Paul Pogba is sidelined, and would have been suspended even if he was not suffering from a groin injury that could rule him out until the new year, and, having talked in the wake of their quiet destruction by Manchester City about a more positive approach against Watford, it would be a surprise if Solskjaer stuck with his double midfield pivot of Fred and Scott McTominay. In the case of both players, but particularly van de Beek, facing a struggling Watford at Vicarage Road on Saturday feels like a case of РІР‚Вif not now, then when?РІР‚в„ў. It is little wonder, then, that the likes of van de Beek and Jesse Lingard are considering their futures, and those feelings may only harden if this weekend brings more disappointment. That may be more understandable if UnitedРІР‚в„ўs go-to men were tearing up the Premier League and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had warned his squad players in the summer that minutes would be scarce this season and they might be better off exploring pastures new.Р”В«ut United are not in good form, the same underperforming players are being entrusted to dig them out of a hole and faith in the wider group looks as hollow as last term, despite the managerРІР‚в„ўs assurances about playing time and insistence on retaining a big squad. After all, you need two hands to count all the outcasts at Old Trafford these days. On the one hand, his 15 months warming the bench at Old Trafford must have been a very lonely existence at times and yet, by the same token, he keeps good company.

It is a strange kind of isolation Donny van de Beek leads at Manchester United.

When is d day 2021