Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has explained why Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sacrificed during the Boxing Day draw with Burnley.
United trailed 2-0 at half-time when Ibrahimovic - starting in attack alongside Romelu Lukaku - and defender Marcos Rojo were withdrawn, replaced by Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard.
That left United playing with only Phil Jones in central defence, with Lingard going on to score twice, equalising in stoppage time to earn United a point, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Ibrahimovic, 36, was starting his first Premier League game since April 9 and was ineffectual alongside Lukaku. Mourinho believes United were livelier with Lingard, Mkhitaryan and Juan Mata playing behind Lukaku.
"[It] was tactical, play only with one central defender," "We know that they don't normally have the ball, they just play direct.
"So really in the line-up, play one against one, Jones was a risk Jones accepted, Matic was there just to bring the ball from totally free positions, so he was bringing lots of balls into midfield.
"And then instead of more positional players like Zlatan and Lukaku, we decided to go with Mkhitaryan, Lingard and Mata all three trying to play in these areas behind Lukaku and we can say we had some success.
"I still think with so many balls in important areas, lots of crosses, good crosses, low crosses, we didn't attack all these balls well, and also not lucky with the rebounds, so I'm happy with the effort, the personality, the feeling of we didn't lose but of course we lost two points."
United trail Manchester City by 13 points and the champions elect can extend that gap to 15 if they beat Newcastle at St James' Park on Wednesday evening.