Prior to the match at Glanford Park, Owen had managed only 46 minutes of action since the Community Shield in August – but he is optimistic of getting more chances to make the right impression.

Owensaid: “It’s been a strange start to the season. We’ve played weekend-weekend-weekend and then into a double-header international break so the manager’s kept a similar team through those three games.

“Subsequently there’s been a lot of us that haven’t played in the first month of the season but now the Champions League’s started, the League Cup’s started and there are Premier League games all the time so I’d like to think there’s going to be plenty of games coming thick and fast.

“People make a lot of different situations but there’s a lot of us in the same boat that haven’t had many minutes.

“It’s a difficult juggling act for the manager because he’s got young kids that he wants to bring through and learn a thing or two, then there’s players that have been injured coming back into the action and players that need the games that have been fit, so it’s par for the course at Manchester United.

“But it’s a bit false at the minute because there have been so few games.”

Gabriel Obertan was introduced midway through the second half of the Carling Cup success – and he figured again last night for the reserves.

However, it was Nicky Ajose who stole the headlines with a 16-minute hat-trick in a 4-0 success defeat of Bolton at Altrincham, with John Cofie rounding off the scoring in injury time.