At least two people have been killed and six injured in a “massive” overnight Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region, Governor Andrei Vorobyev has said.

Vorobyev said 249 drones had been shot down, and he reported fires in several residential houses. A local warehouse was also ablaze. In the capital Moscow, an oil refinery was damaged, and flight restrictions were in place at two airports.

Earlier, a Ukraine official said seven people, including two children, were killed in Russian attacks in the Kyiv and Sumy regions on Saturday.

Russia and Ukraine have recently intensified their strikes, targeting energy-generating and transport facilities, as well as major logistics hubs.

In a post on Telegram on Sunday, Vorobyev said a 44-year-old woman was killed in Sofyino after a drone hit a three-storey residential building. Another five people – including two children – were injured, he said.

In the Orekhovo-Zuevo district, an elderly man died after a private house was hit, the regional governor said.

Videos have emerged on social media purportedly showing explosions in the night skies in the Moscow region, and of a burning warehouse. The footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said a drone struck a building near one of the capital’s boulevards and a facility at an oil refinery was damaged.

He said on social media that 450 drones heading for Moscow had been shot down in what he called an “unprecedented attack”.

Sheremetyevo – Moscow’s biggest airport – warned passengers about “temporary restrictions” in place, while at the capital’s Vnukovo airport all arrivals and departures were halted.

In Ukraine, a mother and her two small children, a boy and a girl, were killed in Saturday’s Russian attack in the city of Fastiv, Kyiv regional head Tymur Tkachenko said.

He added that several private houses were also damaged.

In the north-eastern Sumy region, four people were killed when a Russian drone hit the car they were travelling in, top local official Oleh Hryhorov said.

Both Russia and Ukraine have continued to hit energy infrastructure targets in the past week, despite US President Donald Trump claiming on social media that the two sides had agreed not to.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ever since my mother’s death in February, I’ve been getting clear messages from her that she does not want me to wear her jewellery. 

It may not be the loving communication I was hoping to receive if her spirit’s watching over me but, even so, there is a certain comfort in the idea that she is still around.

None of the jewellery she left us had any financial value. Some of it I don’t remember her ever wearing but my siblings and I didn’t want to simply chuck it out. 

When we distributed it, I took a bracelet by designer Pippa Small strung with small unpolished gemstones, as well as the very plain watch my mother always wore. It has a slim black strap and a simple face of Roman numerals.

Within weeks of my taking the watch, however, I lost it. Distraught, I searched everywhere, including in the recycling bins as they often turn out to be the repository of missing items. But it was nowhere to be found.

My trainer at the local gym told me his Iranian mother said a special prayer whenever anyone in the family lost things and it never failed. He would ask her to say it for the watch. All I had to do was to tie a knot into a piece of fabric and keep it knotted until the watch was found.

Three weeks later the watch did reappear down the side of a sofa. I put it back on my wrist, only for the front glass to fall out and the watch to stop working.

Similarly, the bracelet has broken twice – the first time was as I slept, so I woke to discover myself lying on the stones. Then, last week, after having it restrung, the chain snapped again with the gems scattering over the floor of a store I was in. Mama, I hear you!

Lost child is truly the stuff of nightmares 

A child that disappears one afternoon is every parent’s nightmare and nobody should have to suffer the utter misery, despair and hopelessness that the family of Noah Wood will be experiencing after his body was discovered in a local pond last week.

The degree of terror when a child vanishes is like nothing else. One minute they are in your sightline, the next, gone. It’s happened to all of us but, thankfully, in most cases they re-emerge safe.

My own son Sam disappeared when he was five. We were visiting Rome and walking around St Peter’s Basilica near to closing time when I turned around to find him gone. 

The tourists were thinning out but the church was enormous and filled with hundreds of sculptures, papal tombs and a million places for a child to hide.

I kept thinking about how frightening it would be for him should he get locked in and, plagued by child-snatching fears, I ran wildly around, grabbing at guards and shouting to everyone that I had lost un piccolo ragazzo con i pantaloni rossi. Never have I been more terrified.

After about 20 minutes, somebody found him outside running happily around St Peter’s Square. He was chasing pigeons under the gaze of the 140 saints and martyrs who line the Colonnades. I was massively relieved, but also furious with him.

Even though he was safe and only gone for a short time, the horror of his potential loss stayed with me for days. I can only imagine how it would have felt if it had turned out otherwise and my heart goes out to Noah’s family.

Reunion magic? It can’t Live Forever…

Conversely, one of the best evenings of my life was spent with that same child, now 31, watching Oasis at Wembley last year. It was an incredible concert and going with Sam was emotional in ways I still can’t analyse.

It was made more special because it was the first time Noel and Liam had played together since their split almost 15 years previously. Now, only a year later, they’ve announced dates for another tour. 

It can’t erode my memories of that evening but it does somehow undermine the uniqueness of that reunion tour, and the magic can’t possibly be repeated again.

Pop doesn’t have to be political, just good

Will Oasis, like Ed Sheeran, be expected to reveal their views on Gaza when they perform?

Sheeran’s current US tour is in meltdown after his support act Macklemore used his platform on stage to publicise his ‘Free Palestine’ views.

It’s opened a whole can of worms over whether an artist like Sheeran is correct to stay publicly neutral. Personally, I would much rather he did and that we accept performers can keep their views to themselves.

Certainly, there are some I might admire for their opinion but, in general, I just want to go and see them play their incredible music.

I’m not paying for hugely expensive concert tickets in order to hear them share their political views.

Even the tech bros suit up for the King

I found it oddly reassuring to see the respect the tech bros had for King Charles at his AI summit in Scotland last week. 

Usually geeks are the masters of dressing down – Sir Demis Hassabis, founder of Google DeepMind, is often in crew necks; Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, in leather jackets – but for the King, these men who control whether AI will kill off humanity, scrubbed up nicely, appearing in suits and ties.

How Jemima got her bridal gown so right

Jemima Goldsmith married multimillionaire financier Cameron O’Reilly last weekend wearing an almost completely transparent dress 

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Jemima Goldsmith looked absolutely wonderful at her wedding last weekend to businessman Cameron O’Reilly. 

Walked down the aisle by her two handsome sons, she wore a beautiful white tiered Oscar de la Renta wedding dress which, at first glance, seemed very conventional. On second glance, however, it was clear it was almost completely transparent.

Jemima is perhaps the only woman I know who could get away with such a revealing outfit, managing, at 52, to look traditionally bridal and knock-out sexy without the slightest trace of tackiness. 

Sophie Law was at the salon when her hairdresser broke some unexpected news: she had a patch of hair missing.

At just 16 years old, she was horrified. ‘How had I never noticed this before?’ she asked herself.

After leaving the salon, she booked in with her GP, where a blood test revealed she had an underactive thyroid, which the doctor said was the likely cause of her hair loss.

But medication to stabilise her thyroid hormones didn’t make a difference. Her hair continued to shed. 

She spent the following decade trying everything from density-boosting shampoos to cutting out gluten and even a red‑light therapy helmet, but nothing worked. 

By the time she was 23, she began to notice multiple bald patches when running her fingers through her hair. 

Eventually, aged 26, the Kent-based logistics manager was diagnosed with alopecia areata – the autoimmune condition that caused Jada Pinkett Smith to suddenly lose her hair.

Crucially, it cannot be cured.

Sophie is pictured before her hair loss (L) and when the alopecia areata took hold (R)

‘I used to cry about my hair loss every single day,’ says Sophie. 

Some patients see success with medication like steroids that stop the immune system from attacking the hair follicles. 

Sophie, however, decided against it due to worries about side effects. 

Instead, she relied on a temporary hair-colour powder to fill in the areas where her bald patches were visible, but was constantly worried about it rubbing off. 

‘Every time I would leave the house, I would worry about the wind blowing my hair in the wrong direction,’ she says.

‘I was hiding my hair loss from everyone around me. The only people who knew about it were my family. 

‘It consumed so much of my brain, and that then left very little space for me to actually be present in the moment and be happy.’

She considered clip-in hair extensions, but this was not an option as there was not enough hair for them to clip on to.

Then, earlier this year, she found a solution that finally restored her confidence: an £800 wig. 

Ready-to-wear wigs, which can be made from human hair or artificial fibres, are popular options for people experiencing hair loss. 

Human hair wigs usually range between £200 and over £2,000 and can be styled with curling irons and straighteners, like normal hair. They need to be washed every seven to ten wears. 

Those made from artificial fibres are a more affordable option, usually costing between £50 and £300, and typically last four to six months with regular wear.

Sophie’s wig, which she purchased from Wig and Weaves by Hediye in Ashford, Kent, is made from human hair and features a transparent lace hairline that blends into the scalp.

To try and stop her hair falling out, Sophie tried everything from density-boosting shampoos to a red‑light therapy helmet

Sophie is pictured wearing her £800 human hair wig, which has restored her confidence

‘As soon as I put the wig on, I cried happy tears,’ says Sophie. 

‘It made me feel normal – and like my old self before I even had any hair loss.’

Harley Street trichologist Marie Royce says she sees women every day whose confidence is destroyed by hair loss. 

‘Hair loss can knock a woman’s confidence far more than people realise,’ says Ms Royce, who is based at The Wimpole Clinic. 

‘I see women who are constantly checking mirrors, avoiding certain lighting or worrying that somebody is looking at their scalp. 

‘It becomes exhausting, because you are thinking about your hair all the time.

‘There are medical treatments that can help, but that is not right for everyone, and neither is a transplant. 

‘Some women are not suitable candidates, some do not want surgery, and some simply want a solution that gives them an immediate cosmetic improvement.

‘A really good wig can be completely life-changing. It gives back density and coverage straight away, but more importantly, it can take away that constant anxiety.’

Sophie, who regularly speaks about her hair loss on TikTok, says her family have seen a major change in her personality.

‘My hair is the best it’s ever looked and this has meant my confidence has increased so much,’ says Sophie

‘My mum and dad really struggled seeing me so upset with my hair loss,’ she says. 

‘They can see how much more confident I am now, which means they worry about me a lot less.’   

While she initially planned to wear the wig on special occasions, she now wears it every day.

‘Given how good it makes me feel about myself, I wish I’d done it sooner,’ she says. 

‘My hair is the best it’s ever looked and my confidence has increased so much. 

‘Before, when I looked in the mirror, all I saw was my hair loss –  but now, if I’m feeling sad about it, I can just put on the wig and forget about it.

‘I don’t hide the fact that I wear a wig either; if someone compliments my hair, I will tell them it’s a wig.

‘It felt so shameful and embarrassing when I first started considering wigs – but I’ve changed my mindset on this and I really hope we can start to change other people’s too.

‘Wearing a wig is the same as wearing hair extensions or makeup – you wear it because it makes you feel good about yourself – and it doesn’t need to be a dirty secret.’ 

The lyrics to Sweet Disposition that we are getting wrong

By DOLLY BUSBY SHOWBIZ CORRESPONDENT

Published: 00:22 BST, 20 September 2026 | Updated: 05:27 BST, 20 September 2026

Radio 2 has been plunged into fresh chaos as bosses struggle to fill the Drivetime slot after Joel Dommett turned it down amid whispers of a toxic environment.

BBC chiefs offered the role to Dommett, who presents ITV‘s The Masked Singer, this month after Sara Cox was switched from it to the Breakfast Show following the sacking of Scott Mills over historic sex assault claims.

A source said: ‘It would have been a great opportunity for Joel but he must have heard how miserable and on edge staff are. It’s caused a nightmare as everyone had hopes pinned on him.’

Radio 2 was reportedly shocked that comedian Dommett, 41, who has been in I’m A Celebrity, did not ‘jump at the chance to join’.

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With a salary of £200,000, the job should have been a great chance for Dommett, who has two sons with model Hannah Cooper and has hosted Saturday night show The Masked Singer since 2020.

Since Ms Cox, 51, switched to the Breakfast Show in July, the weekday 4pm to 7pm Drivetime slot has been filled by guest presenters, including Dommett.

The station has been struggling since Ms Cox, who hosted Drivetime for seven years, replaced Mills, 53, on the Breakfast Show after he was fired over historic sex assault claims, for which he was never charged.

Insiders allege that actions by Radio 2 head Helen Thomas are part of the reason why the station has become an undesirable place to work.

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Comedian Joel Dommett (pictured with wife Hannah Cooper) turned down Radio 2’s prime Drivetime slot 

The station is reportedly in a crisis since multiple departures from big names including Zoe Ball (pictured), who left the BBC last year 

Ms Thomas, who has held the post for six years, was one of the bosses responsible for Mills’s sacking, which allegedly infuriated many colleagues. 

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Staff, once loyal to Ms Thomas, are allegedly ‘on edge’ as her ‘fan base has waned’, said a source. ‘The devastating part is nobody knows where this is going to end.’

Radio 2 has seen some of its biggest stars join rival stations.

After 13 years, Chris Evans left the Breakfast Show for Virgin Radio in 2018, followed by Simon Mayo who quit Drivetime and later joined Greatest Hits Radio.

Graham Norton left his Saturday morning show in 2020 after a decade and headed for Virgin.

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Ken Bruce left after 30 years in 2023, taking his quiz PopMaster to Greatest Hits. Claudia Winkleman left five years after replacing Norton. 

Zoe Ball quit last year, with friends saying she did not always feel ‘supported’ by the BBC after her mother died in April 2024.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We don’t recognise this as the reality of working at Radio 2. 

‘The station prides itself on being a supportive family, on and off air, and that culture comes from the top. We don’t comment on speculation around individual contracts.’

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Earl Spencer has told the BBC that there are similarities between the way his sister Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been treated by the press.

He said Princess Diana was “brought low” by press criticism of her and that it is a “pity” to see echoes of that in Harry and Meghan’s lives now.

He added that people should learn from Princess Diana’s example, and that for anyone being “destroyed daily” by the tabloid press, it must be a “cancerous influence” on their lives.

The full interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Princess Diana: My Sister’s Story, will be available on iPlayer from 16:00 and broadcast on BBC One at 18:30 BST on Sunday.

Dressed down in pyjama bottoms and an oversized cardigan, she could have been all-too easily mistaken for any sleep-deprived new mother enjoying a leisurely stroll in the Californian sunshine.

Cradling her baby tightly against her chest, her low-key fiancé walking beside her in shorts and a baseball cap, the woman barely warranted a second glance from locals in the affluent hamlet of Ross, just north of San Francisco.

But anyone scrutinising the family a little more closely would have realised that this was no ordinary suburban mum. Far from it. This was, albeit improbably, Lady Gaga.

The pop singer – who has made a career out of reinvention and has sold millions of records, won an Oscar, and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planet – may have pulled off her most unlikely transformation yet: ‘trad’ wife and mother.

Gone, at least for the moment, are the elaborate costumes, the towering heels and headline-grabbing outfits that have become synonymous with the superstar.

In their place are discreetly comfortable clothes, a baby in her arms, and a quiet life in a well-heeled California community, where she has been spotted sipping red wine at The Corner Bar, buying pots and pans at Crate and Barrel – similar to the upmarket furniture and homeware store Heal’s – and driving herself to Pilates at the wheel of her £31,000 Tesla with a baby seat in the back.

It marks the start of an unstarry new chapter for the 40-year-old whose every public appearance has been a spectacle.

Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months old.

‘Rose’ is reportedly a tribute to one of Gaga’s favourite songs, Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie En Rose. Gaga already has a rose tattooed on her back alongside the title of the song.

The baby’s unusual middle name is said to honour the late civil rights activist Carl Bean, whose 1977 anthem I Was Born This Way inspired Gaga’s iconic 2011 hit, Born This Way.

For Gaga, whose career has been built on theatrical stagecraft and a larger-than-life persona, Rose Bean’s name offers a surprisingly intimate glimpse into her quiet new life.

And as one local described it, Gaga’s latest incarnation is, apparently, as a ‘trad’ – or, traditional – wife. The woman, who has seen the star out and about in Ross, a tree-lined town of 2,500 residents, said: ‘This small town is very quiet. Most people here are from the tech world and Silicon Valley. You see her and Michael around but they are very low-key. Occasionally she’s with a woman who looks like a personal assistant but she’s not surrounded by bodyguards.

‘I barely noticed her the first time I saw her in the coffee shop but I did see the massive diamond ring on her engagement finger.

‘That’s when I realised who she was. No one makes a fuss over her here and that seems to be the way she likes it.’ Gaga – real name Stefani Germanotta – moved into her fiancé’s £7.5 million four-bedroom home in Ross at the start of the summer, leaving behind the £16 million beachfront mansion in Malibu she has called home for more than a decade.

Another local said: ‘The house in Ross is modest when you consider how rich she is [Gaga is reportedly worth £220 million] but it’s cosy and surrounded by trees.

‘You can’t see anything from the road. Michael bought the place a few years ago, long before they got together. He’s a really good guy, quiet and respectful.’

In a rare interview with a technology magazine, Harvard-educated Polansky said that the couple – who are engaged and have been dating since 2019 – met through Gaga’s mother Cynthia, who runs the singer’s Born This Way charitable foundation. Polansky made his money in tech after befriending Sean Parker, one of the co-founders of Facebook.

He now runs a company that uses ‘spare’ human skin left over from medical procedures to test new drugs, and sits on the board of Parker’s cancer charity.

Polansky told Tech Crunch magazine: ‘[Cynthia] had said, you know, for months and months, “I want to set you up with my daughter”. I was like, I think you’re making fun of me.’

But when he and Gaga met at the end of 2019 ‘it all made perfect sense’, he said. When the pandemic hit and everything shut down in the spring of 2020, he moved into Gaga’s Malibu mansion.

A neighbour told The Mail on Sunday: ‘You would see them walking along the beach with her two French bulldogs, deep in conversation.

‘Michael is a big teddy bear of a man and very sweet.

‘It was probably the longest time I’d ever seen her at the house. She was there for months and months. By the time lockdown ended they were a solid couple and the next thing I heard was they’re engaged.’

For her part, Gaga calls Michael ‘the love of my life’. ‘He’s my best friend in the whole world,’ she said. ‘He just blew me away from the minute I met him. He always, I think, really saw me and I think I always really saw him.’

Motherhood and marriage have been on Gaga’s mind for a while.

In interviews to promote her global Mayhem Ball tour, which ended in April, she spoke repeatedly about wanting to take time off and start a family, telling one US talkshow host: ‘I’m hoping motherhood will be my next starring role.’

It has been widely reported that Gaga used a surrogate to become a mother, something her representatives declined to comment on last night. But one source said: ‘She was photographed a lot up to the end of April when the tour ended. She had three songs in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which came out in May, and she did a bit of promotional work for that and then she disappeared.

‘No one ever saw her looking pregnant in public.’

Birth records show Rose was born on June 9 at 11.19pm at Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA.

Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months old

The source, who calls Gaga by the nickname her friends and family use, said: ‘Stefi completely dropped out this summer and went into nesting mode. She and Michael took the summer off and went to northern California and hunkered down.

‘People were gossiping about her going silent but we all thought that maybe she and Michael had eloped. When the news broke about the baby it was a surprise but only because she managed to keep it a secret.’

The source added: ‘No one is surprised she’s become a mum, it’s what she always wanted.’

Gaga’s new role comes amid a life marked by extraordinary highs and lows.

She has spoken openly about the trauma of being raped by a music producer 20 years her senior when she was just 19 and starting out.

Speaking on the 2021 Apple TV series The Me You Can’t See, which was the brainchild of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey, she says the rapist ‘dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parents’ house, because I was vomiting and sick’.

The assault left her with such severe PTSD that she used drugs and alcohol to numb the emotional pain, saying she would smoke up to 20 marijuana joints in a day and was a habitual user of cocaine.

A ‘psychotic break’ came during filming of A Star Is Born in 2018 (for which the song Shallow won her an Oscar).

She was hospitalised and began taking the powerful anti-psychotic drug lithium.

She said: ‘I had a total psychotic break and, for a couple of years, I was not the same girl.’

Gaga, who took her stage name from the 1984 Queen song Radio Ga Ga, has always used music to heal her pain and connect with others who felt alienated.

Her followers, who call themselves ‘Little Monsters’ and refer to her as ‘Mother Monster’, lapped it up as she constantly reinvented herself, often through performances or appearances designed to shock or provoke.

When she sang Paparazzi at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards she wore a lace bodysuit that began leaking gallons of fake blood.

Then there was her raw meat dress, which she explained was a protest against the US military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for gay soldiers. ‘The message was that if people don’t stand up for their rights they will soon have as many rights as the meat on their bones,’ she said.

Another time she arrived at the Grammys inside a giant translucent egg and ‘hatched’ on stage before singing Born This Way.

‘I like to liberate myself with my ability to change,’ she has admitted. ‘I’m a chameleon.’

She sold 170 million records thanks to hits like Poker Face and Bad Romance, became a fashion icon, Hollywood star, LGBTQ+ activist – she admitted to being bisexual in a 2009 interview – and, most recently, make-up guru thanks to her best-selling Haus Labs cruelty-free cosmetics brand.

There were two failed engagements along the way to actor Taylor Kinney and talent agent Christian Carino.

While friends say Polansky does not want to be in the public eye, he has become involved in Gaga’s world, sharing writing credits on some of her recent songs including a ballad called Blade of Grass about their engagement.

She said: ‘A long time ago we were in the backyard and he said, “If I ever propose to you what should I do?” I said, “You can just wrap a blade of grass around my finger and I’ll say yes.”

‘Michael’s sense of gravity might be the thing that I was attracted to about him the most.

‘None of my tricks were gonna work on him.

‘So many people in my life were looking to me for a good time. He saw the “real” me, not that stage version. I feel like a healthy, whole person for the first time.’

There may be another surprise lurking behind the couple’s apparently quiet life together.

While Gaga is widely assumed to be the bigger earner, one friend claims Polansky has amassed a fortune of his own through his technology investments and shares.

‘Everyone assumes that Gaga’s the richest one in that relationship, but I wouldn’t be so certain,’ the friend said.

‘Michael is close friends with Sean Parker who founded Napster and Facebook and is worth billions. I’m not saying Michael is worth billions, but the word on the street in Silicon Valley is that he’s worth several hundred million.

‘He’s not someone who is chasing Gaga’s money. He’s done very well for himself.’

The couple were seen alighting from a private jet in Los Angeles last week, with Gaga protectively cradling baby Rose beneath her trench coat.

As she settles back into her Malibu mansion, the woman who once made provocation her calling card appears to be rebelling in a rather different direction.

But motherhood could well be her most satisfying role to date.

Manchester United have endured a difficult start to the season, with the Red Devils winning just one of their opening five matches as academy youngster JJ Gabriel pushes to leave the club

Manchester United’s season hasn’t started particularly brightly, with Michael Carrick’s side struggling to find much consistency during the opening weeks of the campaign.

A 1-0 defeat by Manchester City last weekend left United with just one victory from their first four Premier League matches and their problems deepened in midweek when Brighton completed a remarkable comeback at Old Trafford, overturning a two-goal deficit to knock them out of the League Cup.

Carrick has also had to contend with injuries disrupting his squad, while uncertainty away from the pitch has now added another unwanted complication. One of the club’s most highly rated academy prospects, JJ Gabriel, is pushing for an exit despite being viewed as a player with enormous potential.

The 15-year-old is yet to establish himself in Carrick’s first-team plans, but his situation has quickly become one of the biggest talking points around the club. United had hoped to nurture Gabriel as part of the next generation coming through their academy, making the latest developments particularly uncomfortable.

With much of the momentum and optimism that was built up at the end of last season beginning to fade, there is plenty for United to address. Here are the latest Manchester United headlines:

Carrick sends JJ Gabriel message

Michael Carrick appears to have sent an indirect message to JJ Gabriel after another academy prospect, Shea Lacey, enjoyed a memorable moment for Manchester United against Brighton on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old was handed a starting role on the right wing and wasted little time making his mark, cutting inside before firing a left-footed finish into the net after just seven minutes.

Lacey’s goal was his first for the senior side and another reminder of the pathway available to United’s academy players. Despite the disappointing outcome against Brighton, Carrick was keen to underline the importance of the youngster’s achievement.

“I’m delighted for him,” he said. “The way the game pans out and the finish of the game and the result, I think it takes it away a little bit but, when the dust settles and he can have a moment, I think he can be very proud of himself because it was a big moment for him.”

The United boss subsequently appeared to point towards the club’s academy system when discussing the possibility of another young player making the step up.

“So many people in the academy work so hard and it’s what this club has been built upon. So Shea’s had that moment… and we’ll see who brings it on to having the next opportunity because we always look forward to the next one.”

Gabriel had been expected by some to feature in the squad against Brighton, but was ultimately left out. The teenager made his senior United debut during a pre-season meeting with Atletico Madrid in August, coming on for eight minutes, but has not been involved with the first team since.

JJ Gabriel situation ‘stinks’

Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has described the situation surrounding JJ Gabriel as something that “stinks”, while questioning whether people around the teenager are pushing him towards making decisions too quickly.

The former England captain highlighted United’s long-standing reputation for producing and developing academy talent, arguing that Old Trafford already provides Gabriel with an environment capable of supporting his progression.

“I don’t know what’s been said or promised behind the scenes, but from the outside this stinks to me that someone is forcing it and pushing it and rushing it. And I don’t think it’s going to help the kid in any way shape or form,” Gerrard said on TNT Sports.

“It scares me that kids can be rushed or careers can be forced. I don’t know the details with JJ Gabriel, but if you look at it all, he’s at one of the biggest clubs in the world. They have a history and a tradition of producing fantastic players… when they feel like he’s ready, they’ll play him.

“These talents, they have parents, they have agents and they outside influencers that force and they push too soon… and it can affect the kid’s career.”