With De Laet doing his best to end his stay at Old Trafford, I had a thought. Maybe, if he toned down his errors, it could be good for us that his lack of assertiveness leads to the odd mistake. A few more, of lesser consequence of course, and his exit from Manchester would be sealed with us primed for accepting him.

Then I realised an error-strewn centre-back is the last thing we need and it is a ridiculous idea. Admittedly, Doc he aint. But something isn’t right in his game and it will need rectifying if he is to realise the potential he appears to have at times.

Equally as ridiculous is the idea put forward by Craig Fleming on Canary Call. Not a place I try to find myself in too often, I hasten to add. The sentiments he offered are not his alone, many a former-pro have uttered the same words in that particular order.

“He’s never played the game.”

Heck, we all know I love a moan but this is absurd.

Halsey had a poor game, we should have had a penalty, they shouldn’t. They missed any road and he can’t give what he doesn’t see. We could have affected the game ourselves had we found that goal scoring touch we’ve had at hand the past couple of seasons. Halsey didn’t stop us scoring. We couldn’t hit the target or get on the end of the plethora of inviting crosses.

But the fact he has “never played the game” doesn’t stop him doing his job. It’s an elitist point of view players have. If retired players who have “played the game” become referees they would be older than most referees currently in the game. Then they’d be saying they’re too old and can’t keep up with play.

Or they’d have ingrained dislike for certain teams, managers and players. And an inescapable like for other such.

Halsey has probably played the game at some low level. He’s not refereeing because he likes to be berated with such virility or he likes the way those in-ear monitors feel around his lobes. He likes and probably loves football.

Fleming backed his view up by saying “I couldn’t go referee a game of rugby”. Well no, Craig. That would be the equivalent of me saying, I can speak English so I’m going to go and teach Cantonese to a Ring-Tailed Lemur. I don’t speak Cantonese. Or Madagascan. And you, Craig, don’t have an total knowledge of rugby or been involved in hours upon hours of rugby unlike the referees have of and in football.

I make mistakes just as much Ruddy does as much as Halsey and co. do as much as Fleming does and as much as you do. We just have so much riding on his job and so much spotlight on his.

It isn’t easy, labeling him as not being good enough to do his job because he has no experience of a different job is ludicrous.