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Ex-Manchester United centre-back Rio Ferdinand appears to have called into question Erik ten Hag's rationale for picking Harry Maguire and Jonny Evans against Aston Villa.

On Thursday night, Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs de Ligt started at the heart of United's back-four. However, the former made a mistake for the first goal, the latter was beaten too easily for Porto's equaliser and neither defender covered themselves in glory for the Portuguese side's third goal.

Both men were replaced in the second half with Maguire starring off the bench, and his header rescued a point in the Europa League. Ahead of the game in the West Midlands, Ten Hag insisted to Sky Sports that Martinez and De Ligt had not been dropped from his side.

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"There is always pressure, but no more pressure than any other game," he said. "Porto was also a very important game and before we played Spurs, an important game, and Crystal Palace, where we played very good, so every game is important.

"Don't make it too big, we are calm and composed - not only the team but everybody in the club. We don't even raise this topic , we have to improve as a team and it's a process."

He added: "In every process you need a strong mentality, but we are focusing on our deficits in the game and we have to improve our deficits and have to move forward. They are a very good team, we don't have to discuss this.

"It's a challenge. They beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League. They've also made some changes."

The suggestion from Ten Hag was that his decision to bring in Maguire and Evans was nothing more than hoping United could keep everybody fresh. However, Ferdinand appeared to hint that was not the case as he uploaded a one-word X (was Twitter) posted which read: "'Rotation'."

His use of quotation marks hint that Ferdinand is, perhaps, unconvinced by the pre-match explanation from Ten Hag. United's manager was under intense pressure before the meeting with Villa and key decision-makers Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada, Sir Dave Brailsford and Dan Ashworth are among those in attendance.