Owen Hargreaves has been removed from our Champions League squad and has been replaced by Ritchie De Laet.

This is clearly only going to add further fuel to the speculation that Owen Hargreaves is unlikely to feature for Manchester United at all this season, if ever again.

Reports in recent days suggested that Sir Alex had dangled the carrot of a place in the squad to face AC Milan in a couple weeks in front of Hargreaves, hoping that this would give him plenty of incentive to really get himself back to match fitness.

It obviously hasn’t worked and Sir Alex has had to have a rethink about the players he wishes to have on standby as we attempt to repeat our Champions League success of the last couple of seasons.

More understandable is the news that Danny Welbeck (currently out on loan until the end of the season) has been replaced by Mame Biram Diouf.