Winger Albie Hopkins was on the mark but an experimental looking Under 23 side lost 4-1 at Swindon this afternoon.
With the under 18s in FA Youth Cup action at Burnley tonight United used the game to give midfielder Tsun Dai some time on the pitch and to have a look at a number of trialists, as Chris Allen told us:
"In the first half we looked really good but obviously with the number of trialists we had playing it was hard to keep a rhythm or to have too much team shape and eventually that caught up with us.
"Albie took his goal really well after some decent build up but it was more about keeping things ticking over for some players - Matt Berry Hargreaves and Brandon Taverner are injured so missed out and others had loan games this week- and also having one eye on next season when we wil look to strengthen and bring in new faces, so we looked at a few options this afternoon with that in mind.
"I don't like losing to Swindon, whoever plays, but sometimes you look at the bigger picture and in that respect it was a useful game for us."
Perhaps our favourite ever line-up:
United
Clayton, Trialist (Trialist), Trialist (Trialist), Trialist (Trialist), Trialist (Trialist), Trialist (Cowan), Heap, Dai,Trialist (R James), Bradbury, Hopkins