Manchester United cannot delay three debuts any longer

An ominous tone was set for Manchester United's meeting at Arsenal with confirmation of the Under-23 team 18 hours earlier: Hannibal Mejbri was starting. United's sole in-form forward is Cristiano Ronaldo and their bench at Arsenal consisted of three centre-backs and one full-back.

The left-back Alvaro Fernandez also lined up for the U23s. Unfortunately for the few thousand away-dayers in the north-east corner of the Emirates Stadium, that meant at least one of Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Alex Telles would start.

Diogo Dalot has not been up to it of late but is at least committed. Wan-Bissaka is just about the antithesis of a true United player. Telles seems to have productive spells of form only in the run-up to Brazil squad get-togethers.

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Remember the clamour to sign Telles 18 months ago? The United scouts should be embarrassed but not as much as the crowd duped by the exoticism of a Brazilian and his stats-padding in the Portuguese league. Telles cost as much as Chris Smalling.

United thought it was impressive they first spotted Telles at Galatasaray in 2014 and claimed he was tracked ever since. When word of that reached Jose Mourinho while he was at Tottenham, it was news to him.

Mourinho would know, having scoured for an adequate left-back to replace Luke Shaw for more than a year until he was denied one. He considered Alex Sandro, Kieran Tierney, Danny Rose and Ryan Sessegnon. Not once was Telles mentioned as a left-back of concrete interest. It is easy to see why.

Telles peaked on his United debut against Paris Saint-Germain, a proactive performance and the tactical zenith of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's reign. Beyond that, Telles