Man United boss Jose Mourinho defends bringing Marouane Fellaini on as substitute – but Belgian is slammed after giving away a penalty in Everton draw

MANCHESTER UNITED boss Jose Mourinho has defended the decision to bring on Marouane Fellaini - because Everton are "direct".

The two sides drew 1-1 at Goodison Park today, with the Belgian midfielder bringing down Everton's Idrissa Gueye for an 89th minute penalty.

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The penalty was expertly scored, as he usually does, by Leighton Baines.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic had earlier given Manchester United the lead when he lobbed the ball home over the advancing Maarten Stekelenburg.

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Clearly perturbed by questioning of why he introduced Fellaini, Mourinho told the :  "What do you mean by that? I thought you would know more about football than you do, because the answer is obvious.

"Everton is not the passing team anymore, like they were, Everton is a team that plays direct, everything is direct, goalkeeper: direct, Ashley Williams: direct, Funes Mori: direct, everything is direct.

"And when a team is losing and plays direct, intensifies the direct football, and when you have a player on the bench with two metres you play the player in front of the defensive line to help the team to the match."

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Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville refused to blame the Portuguese for the substitution, instead stating that the experienced Fellaini should know better.

He said: "[His introduction] was purely to deal with the long balls into the box. You can see the sense in it but when he goes on and does such an idiotic thing like that.

"It was really poor from an experienced international. You can't blame the management, it's just a poor moment."

Mourinho also refused to comment on Marcus Rojo's X-rated lunge on Gueye, where the United centre-back was lucky to just get a yellow card.