Gary Neville believes Manchester United opted against introducing Amad and Shola Shoretire against Crystal Palace as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer feared that might open them up to conceding on the counter-attack.

United played out a dull 0-0 draw at Selhurst Park on Wednesday night just three days after their stalemate with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Anthony Martial missed the game through injury and with Juan Mata also out, there was an opportunity for Amad or Shoretire to be introduced to try to win the match, with United’s front four struggling.

However, Neville believes Solskjaer feared they could be sucker-punched at the opposite end and therefore elected not to bring on either of the young forwards.

“They looked worn, I have to say. We know the fans aren’t in the stadium, we know there’s been a lot of football, but they did really look lethargic tonight and well off it,” Neville told Sky Sports.

“The body language looked really drained. I thought that progress had been made in the last few weeks in the sense that they would cement that second-place by picking up points at places like Crystal Palace.

“Obviously, Sheffield United at home and West Brom, but they’re now making it really hard for themselves. If you’re Liverpool or Chelsea watching that, who play tomorrow night, you’re thinking you’re in with a right chance because they looked leggy.

“So, Manchester United has got to find something from somewhere, there was no sort of urgency at the end of the game, you’d expect United to be throwing everything at it.

“Not even from the bench, really, you’d expect some of the young lads to come on just do something and try to win the game – take a chance, take a risk, but there was almost a fear that maybe Palace could go and counter-attack.

“It wasn’t a good night for Man United; you can’t have too many performances like that. I’ve always said in the past when Louis van Gaal was the manager, or José Mourinho, you can win, you can lose, you can draw but you cannot be boring. That was boring tonight watching that.”