The manager of Manchester United, Erik ten Hag, explained that he substituted Cristiano Ronaldo during their match against Newcastle, which ended in a scoreless tie, so that he could rest up for their future Premier League matches against Tottenham and Chelsea.

After yet another lackluster effort, Ronaldo was substituted out for Marcus Rashford in the 71st minute. During this time, he was called offside, had a goal disallowed, and received a caution.

The 37-year-old forward participated in the entirety of United's victory over Omonia Nicosia on Thursday night, playing all 90 minutes of the match. United will play home to Tottenham on Wednesday and will then head to Chelsea on Saturday.

On a day when academy players Zidane Iqbal and Kobbie Mainoo made their first outings with the first team in the Premier League squad, Rashford was the only substitute United made.

Ten Hag remarked, "We have to cover four games in ten days, and especially for the attackers, I want to keep them fresh." "We have to cover four games in ten days." Because I want to ensure that they are all current, we will be rotating them.

"Some issues that we are dealing with include the fact that Martial is not available at the moment, and Rashy was not feeling well, which meant that he did not have the energy to play the entire game. As a result, we had to make preparations for the four games because we want to win or at the very least get a result in all of them.

"We did not have some players available, including Christian Eriksen, Anthony Martial, and Scott McTominay," the coach said. So that was the impression I got from it.

"I brought freshness with Rashy, and he had an impact; if he scores the goal, everything is right; but we have to accept and see this as the next step in our development, our progress, and deal with this in the next game, and it's a big game," I said. "I brought Rashy in, and he had an impact; if he scores the goal, everything is right."

Despite a number of disputed calls within the penalty area, Ten Hag chose not to remark on the performance of referee Craig Pawson.

As a result of challenges made by Kieran Trippier on Ronaldo and Sean Longstaff on Jadon Sancho, United's appeals were turned down. Additionally, a United player was held scoreless for the fourth time out of 13 games this season. When Callum Wilson went down as a result of a careless challenge by Raphael Varane, Newcastle submitted a request for a penalty kick, but the referee did not award one.

Ten Hag expressed his feelings over the outcome by saying, "I guess I'm unhappy with the result, but I'm delighted with the performance." "A significant number of aspects of the squad, including the method in which we play, have been carried onto the field.

We were able to observe that the pressure throughout the entire game was effective. After halftime, we were able to make some strides toward improvement, and those improvements helped us take control of the game in the second half, which was by far our most dominant period.

"And towards the end, the physical and mental state, how we carried on, and you could see the issues they had. They were all cramping up against one of the most physical teams in the league, but we avoided it because we were strong on the ball and had fantastic pressing.

"By failing to score, we broke them, not killed them. We had the opportunity. Rashford: the Fred pass and the header from a superb Casemiro cross. It's football, so it happens. Although pleased with the effort, the outcome disappointed me.