Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson defended his substitution of Ebere Eze during their FA Cup replay defeat at Everton.
The decision was booed by Palace's away support on Wednesday night.
But Hodgson explained: "If I was a fan, I wouldn't have wanted to see Eze taken off either.
"But we play at 12:30 GMT on Saturday and we need people like Eze who is one of our very best players.
"I would have loved all of my players to play 95 minutes but unfortunately we decided, in order to protect as many players as we can, that we would replace them with players who also deserved a chance to play."