Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has explained why he dropped Juan Mata for the club's latest match, despite the Spaniard being considered by many to be one of his side's better players this season.
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The Portuguese tactician opted to start Jesse Lingard instead, and many fans questioned why he opted to drop Mata despite him featuring in the win over Crystal Palace in the Red Devils' previous game
"Lingard is a different player than Juan," Mourinho explained, as quoted by Manchester Evening News.
"Both very good players obviously but different players.
"Against Palace, we thought it was more important to have Juan's quality to hold the ball up to keep playing inside positions.
"We thought it was important to have one of the three attacking players to be more of a runner and we did that with Jesse and later with Marcus (Rashford)."
Mourinho's decision to start Lingard paid off almost immediately as the winger provided the assist for Zlatan Ibrahimovic's opening strike after just five minutes.
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After his omission from the starting line-up against West Brom, Mata has now not featured in three of United's past four league fixtures.
Do you think Mata deserves more game time at United? Have your say in the comments section below.
