Erik ten Hag was pleased with the attitude of the Manchester United substitutes as Scott McTominay spared them an embarrassing home Europa League draw with Omonia Nicosia.
McTominay scored in the 93rd minute to put United a point away from qualifying for the knockout stage of the competition. A substitute has scored in each of United's last four games, including the winning goal in three of them.
Ten Hag sent on Jadon Sancho, Luke Shaw and Christian Eriksen prior to McTominay's introduction and Eriksen and Sancho combined to create the opening for McTominay to strike from close range.
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"First of all, I want to put Marcus [Rashford] closer to Ronny, give him more support," Ten Hag explained, "in order to get a different variation on the right wing we had to adapt more a midfield player like Bruno is than a typical winger in that cooperation and we adapted for 60 minutes.
"With Antony and Diogo and Bruno, you get a different variation to adapt to it and we try to bring an impact and you bring it in goals in the game. That was the idea and also with Marcus and more box efforts.
"Really happy with that and tells you something about the spirit in the team and the squad, it's not about 11 players, it's about the squad, you have to do it and sometimes it works like that.
"Of course, when you believe in it and the opponent is getting tired, the subs can have an impact when they have the right attitude and the right focus, to be direct, they are fresh and score.
"But also defending, like the example Rapha Varane, he came in and had a massive defence action otherwise [Jordan] Pickford should have scored.
"It's not about me, when you bring in Scott McTominay you know that he can arrive there but it's not a typical scorer who will score you 20 goals, clear.
"When you bring on Marcus Rashford behind and when you bring an impact, a new combination on the left with Luke and Jadon, I think also we create energy with them and they bring tempo to the right area and that's good to see and it means the sub can score. The players also have different tasks, Scott McTominay or Rapha Varane at Everton to save the win."
Omonia goalkeeper Francis Uzoho made 12 saves until McTominay beat the Nigerian, who was personally congratulated by Ten Hag as he left the press conference room. Uzoho, a boyhood United fan, requested a picture with the Dutchman.
"I said well done," Ten Hag said. "He had many, many saves, so many clear goals were not in, so we kept them in the game.
"So the performance until the box was good and the finishing was not that good tonight. Let's hope we save the goals for the coming week."
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