Erik ten Hag has explained his decision to start Christian Eriksen for Manchester United against Chelsea on Saturday.
Eriksen was recovering from a bout of sickness when Tottenham visited Old Trafford earlier in the week and that gave Fred the opportunity to make the starting line up, alongside fellow countryman Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes in midfield.
Although Fred was poor against Newcastle, he was outstanding against Tottenham and he also scored the game's opening goal, but that has not stopped Ten Hag from dropping him to the bench at Chelsea, with Eriksen coming back into the side.
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It seems harsh for Fred to lose his starting place after his Spurs display, but Ten Hag is not afraid to make bold decisions.
Ten Hag was asked about his decision to start Eriksen over Fred ahead of kick-off on Saturday evening and he discussed his team selection, which was unchanged from the Tottenham victory with the exception of the aforementioned call.
"It was a difficult one because the performance from Fred was magnificent," Ten Hag told MUTV. "But I also cannot ignore perfect performances over a long period from Christian Eriksen. [He] was even our best player in the first games of the season.
“He will show his distribution, his cleverness to take the right positions and also he sees the passes, the final pass and he can score a goal. This team, I really happy with [fitness] that, they get fitter and fitter and they really work hard for it.
"They do the right things in recovery and food and you can see you can play every game.”
United will be hopeful of a result on Saturday, as Chelsea are without a win in nine league games against the Reds.
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