Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martinez made their Manchester United debuts against Brighton on Sunday - and it's safe to say they both had games to forget.
Neither player performed particularly badly at Old Trafford but Brighton were good value for their victory as Erik ten Hag learnt just how difficult his job of steering United back to the Champions League is going to be this season.
Ten Hag made the bold call of naming Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench for the Red Devils with Eriksen being given the nod to play as a false nine, with Bruno Fernandes behind him in a number 10 role.
The decision raised eyebrows for two reasons.
The positions are very similar and it became immediately apparent that the teammates were getting in each other's way, with Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho largely playing too deep to overlap successfully.
Secondly, Ronaldo was named on the bench because he hasn't had much of a pre-season with Man United after he missed the club's tour of Australia and Thailand due to personal reasons.
Ten Hag doesn't believe the Portugal international is up to speed, but Eriksen didn't have a pre-season with United either so it's therefore interesting he got the nod to play in an unfamiliar position.
From an individual perspective, Eriksen didn't have a terrible game. The Denmark international just struggled to command United's front line and hold up play effectively.
It wasn't that he wasn't in the game - he had his fair share of touches - but he was unable to influence anything meaningful and continually dropped deep to try and change this.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Did Erik ten Hag make the correct call by dropping Cristiano Ronaldo? Comment below
In the first half, Eriksen had a great opportunity to score when he was teed up in the box by Fernandes, but the ball got caught under his feet and the chance came to nothing.
In the second half, the Dane was moved back into central midfield after Ronaldo was subbed on for Fred - an interesting decision considering Eriksen was the man Ten Hag picked to play the furthest forward at the start of the match.
Further back, Eriksen settled into the game and became more influential playing balls forward, picking out Marcus Rashford with a great ball only for the England forward to fire wide.
Overall, Eriksen lacked fitness. There's no denying he's a top drawer operator and he'll have better displays in a United shirt, but he simply wasn't ready to lead the line this Sunday and it showed.
Moving back into defence and Martinez looked much sharper than his teammate, although equally would have expected more from himself on his Man United debut.
The £56.7million centre-back from Ajax started the game very well and looked like a safe pair of hands alongside Harry Maguire. What was immediately noticeable was his speed in closing down an attack.
But as Brighton turned the screw the lack of a partnership between Martinez and Maguire became apparent.
For Pascal Gross' opener, Martinez was pulled out of position when he began following Maguire's man while the England international was caught ball-watching.
This meant that Luke Shaw had two markers to contend with and followed the man running into the box, taking up the position of the left centre-back while Martinez occupied the position of the right centre-back.
Gross was, therefore, left unmarked when the ball was played across the area and was on hand to fire home.
Martinez and Maguire also crossed paths for Gross' second, with the captain realising he was in the wrong position and facing away from play to gesture to his teammate to stay in the area he should be.
United stemmed the flow of goals in the second half after Ten Hag shuffled his pack and brought on Ronaldo.
But Martinez was extremely lucky to not concede a penalty when he bundled over former United striker Danny Welbeck in his box.
Overall, Martinez showed glimpses of why Ten Hag was so keen to sign him, but also, like his boss, learnt how much work there is to do to turn this team around.
New left-back Tyrell Malacia was given a quick run-out five minutes before the end but wasn't on the pitch long enough to influence the match.
