Louis van Gaal is clearly angling for a thesaurus as a Christmas present. The Manchester United manager said he had no words to describe the disappointment of the past week, going out of the Champions League, going down at Bournemouth and so on, so imagine his dismay when Alex Neil’s relegation-battlers took a first-half lead here and held on for three points.

United are now out of the top four and Van Gaal said the first home league defeat of the season confirmed a crisis of confidence. “We are in a bad period and we have to stick together to come out of it,” the manager said. “We had our chances, but didn’t finish, and I have been saying that for a while. You have to win against Norwich City at home.”

That came as news to his counterpart Neil, who described his side’s first win here in 26 years as possibly his greatest managerial achievement. “We kept them to just two shots on target and that’s to our credit,” the Norwich manager said. “We knew if we could cut out the silly errors we would give ourselves a chance, and that is what happened. We didn’t come just to defend; it’s not like the old days here when you might get hit for four or five.”

By the time Cameron Jerome slotted a shot past David de Gea six minutes before half-time the match had already settled into a familiar pattern.