With six games in the space of just 19 days between last Tuesday's 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest and the derby clash with Manchester City on January 14, Erik ten Hag was always going to have to shuffle his pack at some point.
The introduction of an inaugural winter World Cup means that Manchester United, as well as the rest of their Premier League counterparts, particularly those competing in Europe and still alive and kicking in the Carabao Cup, face something of a fixture pile-up following the resumption of the domestic campaign. Tuesday night's 3-0 win over Bournemouth at Old Trafford marked United's fourth game since the restart less than a fortnight ago.
Although United's quest to secure a top-four finish is their bread and butter and ultimate ambition this season, they are still competing in three other competitions. The Reds are scheduled to get their FA Cup campaign under way on Friday evening, hosting Everton at Old Trafford.
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Given United's current upward trajectory, they will head into the clash with the Toffees, who were thumped 4-1 at home by Brighton on Tuesday night, as favourites to progress to the fourth round. However, United will still refuse to take them lightly.
Such is their position in the table, Everton are likely to approach Friday night's cup clash with the ambition of winning the tie and progressing deep into the competition, in the hope of giving their fans something to shout about this term. They are already out of the Carabao Cup, meaning it remains their only hope of winning their first trophy since 1995, and are in danger of being relegated.
With that said, United manager Erik ten Hag may have selected a slightly changed line-up against Bournemouth with half an eye on the tussle with Frank Lampard's side. The Dutchman made the decision, surprisingly, to make four alterations against the Cherries, recalling Victor Lindelof, Harry Maguire, Donny van de Beek and Marcus Rashford to the starting line-up, who came in at the expense of Raphael Varane, Tyrell Malacia, Antony, who missed out through injury, and Alejandro Garnacho.
With the exception of Rashford, the members of the quartet that came into the side against Bournemouth do not feature in what has become Ten Hag's first choice starting line-up. Varane, alongside Lisandro Martinez, has become a stalwart figure under Ten Hag this season, acting as the glue in the back four, meaning Maguire and Lindelof are widely considered United's second-choice centre-back paring. Van de Beek, too, has barely featured.
But when you consider Bournemouth's torrid record away from home so far this season, it suggested that Ten Hag highlighted the Cherries as an opponent that he could afford to take a risk or two against, and so it proved, even though he would have been heavily criticised had it backfired. At the same time, though, United have ambitions of ending their trophy drought this season, and the FA Cup offers them another route in trying to achieve that.
The Reds have back-to-back cup fixtures to come in the next week, first facing Everton and then League One side Charlton Athletic in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup. A win over the Addicks will put Ten Hag's troops within two games of a trip to Wembley at the end of February.
Therefore, with two important cup fixtures on the horizon, Ten Hag could be prioritising the prospect of taking the club a couple of steps closer towards ending their pursuit of silverware, in the sense that he rested a crop of his senior stars against Bournemouth. The south coast outfit, who were promoted from the Championship last season, arrived at Old Trafford having taken just eight points from their last 18 away games in the Premier League, a run that had seen them concede 49 times, as well as failing to keep a single clean sheet.
Taking those kind of statistics into account, Ten Hag seemingly felt that whatever starting line-up he fielded would have had enough to get the job done, saving some of his key figures for the beginning of the FA Cup campaign. Changes were guaranteed to happen at some stage during this hectic period, it was just surprising that the Dutchman made so many of them at once.
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