"crutches" is a word that is used in written English.
You can use it to refer to devices that help a person walk when they are injured or have difficulty doing so on their own. For example, "He had to use crutches after the accident to help him walk."
When his stricken striker limped off United had already used their three substitutes and Van Persie did leave the ground on crutches, but United's third substitution was not made until the 80th minute so they did not play with a "passenger" for long.
All they lacked in this period was someone to finish off one of their chances in the absence of Glenn Murray, the scorer of 31 goals this season but on crutches here because of the knee injury he suffered in the play-off semi-final against Brighton.
However, attitudes are starting to change, and I saw many enterprising people using homemade crutches and wheelchairs in public.
Times columnist Matthew Parris described Clacton, where last October Tory defector Douglas Carswell became Ukip's first MP, as "Britain on crutches".
That points to a Japanese-style future for Western banks, in which a thinly capitalised system staggers along, insisting on its rude health, while the state follows holding crutches an inch beneath its armpits.
Once strapped in, the user chooses "walk" mode, pushes his crutches outward and is off.
Others have merged and lend less to midsized firms than their constituent parts once did.Among the reasons for this withdrawal are the managerial challenges of analysing the creditworthiness of small companies with none of the crutches that come from credit-rating agencies and the public data disclosed by larger firms.
After all, it comes at a time when Japan's domestic demand is already sagging and its financial sector is still on crutches (see article).
Murmuring in their native Aramaic, the language Jesus is said to have spoken, they deposit glass eyes or the crutches they hope they will no longer need.
Her 50-year-old son, a victim of childhood polio, was beaten with his crutches by Albanians screaming: "What are you waiting for?
Ms Aktas now hobbles around on crutches: the police clubbed her so hard as she tried to escape that they broke her left hip.
