Sir Alex Ferguson fears Antonio Valencia will be out for the rest of the season after suffering an horrific injury in Manchester United's Champions League draw with Rangers at Old Trafford.
Valencia went down after a seemingly innocuous incident involving Kirk Broadfoot and immediately signalled he was in trouble.
TV replays showed his foot pointing in the wrong direction and he was eventually stretchered off, with Broadfoot in obvious distress.
"It is a dislocation or a fracture and he gets operated on tomorrow morning," confirmed Ferguson following the 0-0 draw.
"It was an innocuous challenge but when you saw the Rangers player waving, you knew it was a bad one.
"It is a bad blow for the boy. It is similar to the injury Alan Smith got and you are talking about the rest of the season."
Arguably, Smith was never the same player for United after he suffered his injury in a freak accident against Liverpool in 2006.
At the time, Ferguson described it as the worst injury he had ever seen.
In total, Smith was out of action for seven months, which if repeated in Valencia's case, would keep the winger out until mid-April.
It certainly presents Ferguson with a major problem because without the former Wigan man, he is left with just Nani, veteran Ryan Giggs and untested Gabriel Obertan as orthodox wide-men.
At least Ferguson was able to report good news on Wayne Rooney, who on his return to first-team action went over on his ankle just before half-time and was limping noticeably immediately afterwards.
"Wayne Rooney is OK. He went over on his ankle but it was no problem," said Ferguson.
Ferguson denied he had taken liberties with his team selection, even though his decision to make 10 changes to the side that drew at Everton on Saturday backfired.
The one mistake he did admit to was not putting in-form Dimitar Berbatov on the bench as cover.
"We wanted to see how Hernandez would do in a full game," said Ferguson.
"Because of that we left Berbatov out and his form has been absolutely fantastic.
"He has been one of our best players this season and his ability to create in tight situations would have made a difference."
In the end, United had nothing more to offer than Darron Gibson's piledrivers, which came close, but not close enough to prising open the blanket Rangers defence.
"It was a frustrating night for us," he said.
"Rangers' system of play was very difficult to break down. I don't know if playing anyone else would have made any difference.
"They were well organised and defended so deep, it was difficult to open them up at all.
"We didn't test their goalkeeper at all, apart from a couple of shots straight at him.
"It was a really difficult night."
Rangers boss Walter Smith praised his players while also defending their backs-against-the-wall approach.
Smith admits he would love to adopt a more creative approach to these games but insists the financial gulf between the top clubs in Europe and smaller nations like Scotland means teams like Rangers have no option but to do whatever necessary to get results.
"I am proud of the way my players played," he said.
"They are up against a situation that's not of their making. UEFA are allowing a situation to develop that is totally wrong.
"Bigger clubs in smaller countries are being drastically affected by the lack of finance and it's very difficult to compete.
"It's down to a manager to find a way, and in any walk of life it's easier to stop people doing something than it is to create.
"It's a circumstance that we don't feel proud of the fact we're doing it, but there's nothing else left for us. I must say that over the two or three years my boys have done it extremely well.
"I'm not just talking about Scotland. Clubs in Holland, Portugal and other countries are all suffering badly. They have next to no chance of winning the Champions League, the same as 85% of English teams have no chance of winning their league.
"It's far easier to try to stop other teams playing than it is to create. Maybe with a little more care we could have created one or two better opportunities.
"We didn't create that much at all. We would have expected to come and defend here and I thought we did that very well for the 96 minutes that we played."
United made 10 changes from the side who drew with Everton at the weekend, with only Darren Fletcher remaining in the side, and Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand both returning to the team.
Smith said: "If you look at his team selection tonight can anyone say that any of those players wouldn't get into 80% or 90% of Premiership teams?
"Wayne Rooney would get into them all. We had to make sure we had to counter that. Manchester United were liable to create problems and we tried to nullify that and we managed to do it reasonably throughout the game.
"We have to do that. Scottish teams now are not in the situation we were in several years ago when we were able to compete to sign top players. We can't do that now so we have to find a way to try to succeed and nullify the opposition as much as we can.
"Rangers and Celtic have handled the situation in the Europa League but it's difficult in the Champions League with the financial disparity there is.
"I'm pleased with our players tonight they showed good determination and a high level of concentration and restricted Manchester United to very few clear-cut opportunities.
"We were always going to have to work very hard for a point and we did that. I'm disappointed that at times we weren't tight enough in our overall possession but I am happy to get a point."
