Louis van Gaal stated in his pre-match interview that he was going to tell the players that there were no excuses; a performance and a result was needed.

The latter is true but the former is questionable. The starting line-up had an average age of twenty-four due to young, inexperienced players having to fill in for injured senior players, so it seemed an odd rallying cry.

Initially it almost seemed like it had done the trick, for in a very unusual turn of events for United this season, the first half began brightly. An incisive Juan Mata through ball released Anthony Martial to score early. It was a move consisting of two quick forward passes and a run in behind.

After the goal, Louis van Gaal was seen taking notes in an urgent manner and one wonders if he was disappointed by the lack of slow build-up play leading up to the goal. Why only two quick passes when you can have twenty slow ones?

Funnily enough, he may have been justified if he was thinking that as United went on to concede two goals in just over fifteen minutes. While the had team looked like scoring going forwards, Wolfsburg looked just as capable of scoring going the other way.

Bastian Schweinsteiger and Marouane Fellaini were the players in the midfield double pivot but they provided about as much protection as a knife at a gun-fight.

It was a performance that was ominously reminiscent of that 5-3 loss to Leicester last season where Jamie Vardy announced himself in the Premier League.

In the second half, Schweinsteiger was hauled off after continuing to perform poorly but strangely, Mata was also taken off. If this was a tactical switch, it indicated that his quick first-time passing and chance creation was no longer needed.

On came Nick Powell who proceeded to misplace passes and contribute nothing. It wasn’t Powell’s fault, for he is a rusty relic of a time gone by, thrown in to a crucial encounter to save a game in a wild gamble.

The game then did become a wild encounter with United attacking with urgency and the pressure, however clumsily applied, did yield an own-goal from Wolfsburg, bringing the game to 2-2.

However, as was the case in the first half, United conceded immediately. To make matters worse, Chris Smalling – United’s most consistent player this season – picked up an injury but had to play on limping due to their being no substitutions left. A penny for Mata’s thoughts…

Overall, it was an amateurish performance that was exemplified by poor organisation at set-pieces and a lack of concentration after scoring.

It is alarming that there looked no sensible balance between swashbuckling and sterile at this point in the manager’s reign - injuries or no injuries. The process and the philosophy - the buzzwords of the Van Gaal era - aren’t standing up to scrutiny at this moment in time.

The Europa League beckons and discontent among fans grows by the day. The pressure is firmly on the feisty Dutchman now. Last Christmas, Van Gaal toasted journalists at a press conference with a glass of wine but he may not have the gall to do that this time around.