Marcus Rashford breaks silence after being hauled off at half-time by Erik ten Hag during Man Utd draw in Porto

Marcus Rashford has spoken out after he was substituted off early during Manchester United’s Europa League clash with Porto on Thursday.

United drew their second successive Europa League match on Thursday as their match with Porto finished 3-3 after the Portuguese side came back from being 2-0 down to the visitors.

Despite scoring the opening goal of the match to put the visitors in the lead, Rashford was taken off by Untied manager Erik ten Hag at half-time and replaced by Alejandro Garnacho.

And now, in the wake of the disappointing draw, the United forward has broken his silence on the result.

Posting on social media platform Instagram after the match, Rashford wrote: “Bitter Sweet. I’m happy to learn that I have broken into the top five scorers in Europe for United, but I’m gutted that we never managed to win tonight.”

Rashford put United into the lead just seven minutes into the match after Porto goalkeeper Diego Costa failed to stop a powerful shot from finding the right-hand corner of the net.

Only 13 minutes later, the Englishman set up teammate Rasmus Hojlund who scored his first goal of the season to double United’s lead in the match.

But the game was far from over, as goals from Porto’s Pepe and Samu Omorodion in the 27th and 34th minutes put the hosts on level terms with United heading into half-time.

Therefore, it surprised many when Ten Hag decided to take Rashford out of the game and substitute him off at the break.

Explaining his decision post-match, Ten Hag told MUTV: “We have to rotate. Garnacho, we didn’t start him.

“He had a great game, not only on Sunday, but I think in the whole season.

“We sub them because on Sunday we have another hard game, a good game, so we need players to be available and be fit and be fresh.

“It’s a quick turnaround to Villa. They have a day longer [to recover] and we have an away game, so we want fresh players on the pitch.”

Shortly after the second half started Omorodion scored his second goal of the match to put Porto in the lead, before an injury time equaliser from substitute Harry Maguire split the points between the two sides.

Next up for United is an away trip to face an in-form Aston Villa side who are coming off the back of a shock 1-0 victory over German giants Bayern Munich in the Champions League.