Erik ten Hag admitted he had little choice but to recall Harry Maguire thanks to Manchester United's "crazy" Premier League fixture schedule.
The United captain has been used sparingly by Ten Hag this season, with Maguire making just 11 league appearances so far this term. In his place, the man in the Old Trafford hot-seat has opted to deploy a central defensive pairing of Raphael Varane and summer signing Lisandro Martinez.
It is a duo that have enjoyed huge success, with both integral to United's impressive turnaround. Maguire was a mainstay in the backline last term during a campaign that saw Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lose his job as manager and the Red Devils scrape Europa League qualification on the final day.
In contrast, with Varane and Martinez, United have ended their six-year wait for a trophy and are in a positive position when it comes to finishing inside the top four. Ten Hag has hardly hidden the fact that he views Varane and Martinez as his first-choice pairing, with the Dutchman using the both of them for the Carabao Cup final back in February.
With that being said, Ten Hag has hinted that the sheer amount of fixtures United have to deal with between now and the end of the season justified Maguire's inclusion against the Toffees on Saturday.
" He played against Fulham, he played against [Real] Betis, he’s playing for England so he’s fit, he’s ready to play and the thinking is we have the most crazy schedule from all the Premier League teams," the United boss told BT Sport.
"We have three games to cover in six days - which is not right, but we have to deal with it."
It is not just at the back where United have issues and Ten Hag faced questions over whether the club's other attackers need to do more to ease the goalscoring burden on Marcus Rashford or whether he needs to sign new forwards.
"Maybe both," he conceded. "I think they can. Antony already scored a couple of goals - seven or eight goals - scoring in big games, it’s not bad for a winger, right? In his first season. Also against big opponents like Barcelona, Betis.
"[Jadon] Sancho, he has a period out, [Anthony] Martial can definitely do it, Bruno [Fernandes] also we know it. He’s now playing in a little bit deeper role so he’s further away from the goal but we have goal scoring players in our squad. We have to work on our scoring abilities but also we have to think about the transfer market, yes."
