United manager Brian McDermott says Cameron Stewart’s absence from the squad at Brighton on Tuesday was to ensure maximum game time from the winger’s loan spell.

While Stewart has already signed a permanent deal with the club, to start in the summer, he initially joined on a 93-day loan from Hull City.

That loan spell was temporarily halted after Saturday’s game at Yeovil and will re-start again when we travel to Middlesbrough on February 22, and the boss says the result is that he will be available for more games.

“If he’d have played on Tuesday he’d have missed three or four games at the back end of the season,” explained the boss. “But by missing Tuesday it means he can play in them all other than the last game of the season.

“Did we miss him? You can always look after the event, but you make a decision and you stand by it. The benefit to us is the games he can play later now.”