Manchester United defender Diogo Dalot has admitted it was pre-planned for him to push high on Tuesday night, even though it led directly to Roma's opening goal in the 3-2 Champions League thriller at Old Trafford.

Dalot was in the visitors' half, higher up the pitch than Bruno Fernandes in the left-sided attacking position, when Kobbie Mainoo lost the ball close to the halfway line.

It took just two passes before the cross-field delivery that picked out Matias Soule completely unmarked in the space Dalot was expected to be occupying.

The ease of Roma's goal was viewed as being down to inherent weaknesses in United's structure.

But Dalot has revealed the plan had always been to attack the visitors.

"Yes, obviously," he said when asked if head coach Michael Carrick had asked him to push high at the start of the game. "We knew they were going to play man-to-man.

"But that requires some things we need to avoid, especially losing balls in the middle, because we knew we're going to be too open.

"After the second goal, we tried to fix it straight away. We balanced the game a little bit more and kept ourselves in it, and in the second half we came right."