However, the Swede’s departure could leave a massive hole in United’s striking department following confirmation Saha has been sent for a scan after picking up an injury in training this morning.

Ferguson refused to specify the nature of Saha’s problem, although it is believed to be a muscular injury.

But, if the scan results are not good, it will leave Wayne Rooney as United’s only fully fit striker for the Premiership encounter with Bolton on March 17 as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is already ruled out for the rest of the month after undergoing knee surgery.

Yet it seems not even a striker crisis will force Ferguson to abandon his stated desire for Larsson to return home next week.

“Henrik Larsson definitely goes back to Sweden next week,” said Ferguson.

“He will play in the European charity game on Tuesday, then he will go home.

“An agreement has been reached between myself, Henrik and the respective clubs. There is nothing we can do about that now, much as we would like to.”

Larsson is a certain starter against Lille tomorrow, with Ferguson confirming Saha will be an absentee.

“We are not 100% sure what the problem is,” said the United boss.

“We have sent him for a scan to try and find out but he will not be fit for tomorrow.”

Ferguson also revealed midfielder Darren Fletcher, who was initially sidelined for a fortnight after picking up an ankle knock in the FA Cup win at Reading last week, would now miss virtually the remainder of the season after the Scot’s scan results were worse than initially feared.

“Darren has damaged his ankle ligaments,” said Ferguson.

“He had a lot of swelling and we had to wait for it to go down before we could do the scan.”