Jose Mourinho has revealed he apologised to Henrikh Mkhitaryan after substituting the midfielder at half-time during the FA Cup victory over Derby County, ESPN reported.

The Armenian national team captain and Manchester United midfield was handed just his second start in two months against the Championship side at Old Trafford on Friday. But he lasted just 45 minutes before he was replaced with Romelu Lukaku, who scored the second goal in a 2-0 win.

However, Mourinho said afterwards his decision had been "unfair." He told a news conference: "I didn't like what I did, unfair, he didn't deserve.

"He was playing well, he was not playing bad, he had a couple of mis-possessions, but he was giving a good dynamic to the team and my feeling was that [Marcus] Rashford is not going to score a goal and because of that I am not going to lose time and I am going to play Romelu and I am going to sacrifice a player and Mkhi was the one I sacrificed.

"But it is not something I normally do and at half-time I apologised to him in front of the people because he didn't deserve it."

To note, in Mkhitaryan's absence, Lukaku came off the bench to score his first goal in five games.