Jonny Evans, who is hardly the most popular player amongst fans at the moment, has made the unwise decision to claim that Northern Ireland qualifying for a major tournament would eclipse winning anything with United, apart from maybe the Treble.

“I think qualifying for a major tournament with Northern Ireland would sort of eclipse anything I could achieve with Manchester United, unless it was something like the treble, really cleaning up,” said Evans. “Definitely, it’s a harder task to qualify. I think it’s harder to win the Premier League or the Champions League than it is to qualify for a major tournament with, say England. But I do believe it’s harder for us to qualify for a big tournament than it would be for Manchester United to win the Champions League or the Premier League. Saying that, I don’t think the lads come here thinking “we’ll just turn up”, just look at how hard we work on the pitch.”