Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal admits Wayne Rooney may have made the knee injury that is set to sideline the striker for six weeks worse by playing through the pain last weekend.
Van Gaal said at his press conference ahead of Thursday's Europa League clash with FC Midtjylland that the reason Rooney had not travelled with United to Denmark was a knee problem sustained in the 2-1 Barclays Premier League defeat at Sunderland on Saturday.
The manager would not put a timeframe on Rooney's absence, but it is understood that the Red Devils and England captain is facing around six weeks out.
It was then put to Van Gaal that Rooney had played the full duration of Saturday's game rather than coming off, and the Dutchman said: "That's typical Wayne.
"He's a guy who wants to go until the end - if he's feeling pain he doesn't want to go off. He wants to win.
"That's a fantastic attitude but sometimes it's also bad for his body.
"But you cannot say (if he made the injury worse by staying on) because he didn't know when it happened. That's the difficulty."
Van Gaal stressed United will simply "have to cope'' after an injury that takes the club's list of unavailable senior players to 12.
But the loss of Rooney - as well as being a worry for England as they prepare for Euro 2016 - would appear a major setback for Van Gaal at a time when his team are struggling in the race for a top-four finish in the Premier League and the 64-year-old's position is under increasing scrutiny.
Rooney, with 14 goals in all competitions, is United's top scorer this season and the 30-year-old has netted seven times in his last nine matches.
Van Gaal's squad looks severely limited right now in terms of out-and-out striker options.
However, when asked if he regretted not bringing more in for this season or letting ones he did have like Robin van Persie and Javier Hernandez go, Van Gaal insisted he did not.
He added: "Our policy is that we didn't want a big squad, because otherwise you can't try youngsters in your team. And normally you don't have so many injuries.''
While making reference to the options he does have available up front - the key one being Anthony Martial - Van Gaal did mention Will Keane, who is among several inexperienced players in the squad for Thursday's last-32 first leg, along with Donald Love, Regan Poole, Joe Riley and James Weir.
Van Gaal also reiterated that winning the Europa League is now looking United's most viable route into the Champions League.
But he said of Danish champions Midtjylland, who defeated Southampton in the Europa League play-offs in August: "We must not forget we have to beat a very good team.
"And the circumstances are also not so easy - the pitch is smaller than usual. So it will not be so easy to beat Midtjylland here.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here