It is international break time and there is now a fortnight to prepare for United’s away trip to Bramall Lane.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is boosted by the fact in form stars Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Anthony Martial have been left out by their countries.
Martial’s omission from the France squad should not come as a surprise, but it is both unwarranted and welcome.
Didier Deschamps seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Martial, despite the United striker’s sensational form.
Chelsea back-up Olivier Giroud is in, despite sitting on zero Premier League goals for the season. As is Atletico Madrid attacker Thomas Lemar, who has no goals and assists in 11 appearances.
Anthony Martial now has five goals and three assists from eight starts.
But that’s up to France, and it is their poor decision they have to deal with. For United, it’s not all that bad.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka is another player harshly and dare we say wrongly left out of England’s international squad.
Wan-Bissaka is arguably England’s best right-back, and he leads all defenders in the Premier League averaging 5.3 tackles per game.
Fred is a Brazil international who went to the World Cup, and while he has had his struggles at United since, his resurgent form has gone ignored by Selecao bosses.
Keep on overlooking them
From a club perspective, we would rather our top players don’t play international football.
We saw David de Gea pick up an injury for Spain during the last break and nearly miss the Liverpool fixture.
And everybody remembers how Paul Scholes’ successful club career was lengthened by him giving up his England duties.
It can have it’s benefits. Marcus Rashford might have kickstarted his season after a rough patch for United, with an impressive goal away to Bulgaria last month.
The chance to play at Euro 2020 can be a motivating factor for players and give them an extra reason to lift their games and not let their standards drop at all.
At this stage of the season though, with United dependent on players like Martial and Wan-Bissaka, we are pretty comfortable with them sitting these games out.
We saw our form before the last break when both players missed time with injuries. United missed both badly.
The snubs can only spur Martial and Wan-Bissaka on, and we need them both fresh for when the Premier League resumes.
Didier Deschamps and Gareth Southgate are more than welcome to keep on overlooking them, to their own cost and our gain.
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