The midfielder, who only trained with his new team-mates for the first time this week, put in a solid performance for the Reds, but could not prevent us from falling to a 1-0 defeat.
However, United were missing several key players in the West Midlands and, with building fitness very much the main objective of the afternoon, there were still plenty of positives to take from the loss against Dean Smith’s men.
Getting 90 minutes into van de Beek’s legs is certainly one of them. Prior to Saturday, Donny had played just over an hour of football in six months, so the warm-up match against Villa will have significantly boosted the Dutchman’s fitness levels.