Erik ten Hag defends Manchester United rotation policy ahead of Brighton game

Erik ten Hag has defended his lack of rotation at Manchester United and said the players in his squad are capable of playing a significant number of games during a season.

United will play their 53rd game of the season against Brighton in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley today, but Ten Hag's squad has been heavily hit by injuries in recent weeks.

There was also a sense tiredness was catching up with them in the limp defeat to Sevilla in the Europa League quarter-final second-leg on Thursday, but Ten Hag refused to let that be an excuse for a performance he described as "unacceptable".

READ MORE: Ten Hag reveals what he said to players after Sevilla defeat

Four United players have already played more than 3,000 minutes this season, with Casemiro just nine short of that milestone, and Ten Hag hasn't always rotated as much as expected, especially after making seven changes in defeat to Real Sociedad in September.

But the Dutchman insists he has made changes and also put the pressure on his players to cope with the workload demanded of them, as well as raising the lack of strength in depth within his squad.

“I think also we rotate during the whole season, but this season is crazy with the World Cup in between, and many of our players were present there," said Ten Hag.

"Then we played an extra round in the Europa League, so we maybe played the most games of all teams across Europe. But I think also players are to a certain point capable and we have players in the squad who can really have the load of a lot of number of games.

"So it’s difficult to say, and if the squad is so strong that you have in every position double the same quality ... but yeah we have to acknowledge that especially in the frontline we had problems