Manchester United’s Shinji Kagawa missed yesterday’s 1-0 defeat to Newcastle with one of the oddest excuses yet heard in the Premier League. The Japanese midfielder was left on the sidelines as he had had his stomach pumped after he ate too much.

The Daily Mail reports that David Moyes told reporters after yesterday’s game the 24 year old had been taken to hospital following Wednesday night’s game, saying: "Shinji was very sick after the game and he did a bit of training on Friday but he was low.

"All of the stats that we look at were low so we felt we had better not take a risk in case we got an injury by playing him.

"It was a bad sickness. He thinks he ate too much, and he had to get his stomach pumped, but I think he is okay."