Mourinho bizarrely subs off Roma player and finishes the match with 10 men

Jose Mourinho has once again shown his tactical nous after deciding to make a bizarre substitution in Roma's final pre-season clash and deliberately finishing the match with 10 men.

The Portuguese is never far from controversy and created confusion amongst his bench in Saturday's friendly against Albanian side Partizani.

With Roma leading 2-0 and 11 minutes left on the clock at the Air Albania Stadium, Mourinho decided to bring off recently-joined midfielder Houssem Aouar.

However, they had already used up their eight permitted substitutions during the game and that meant Aouar departed proceedings without anyone replacing him.

The Algerian international - formerly a target for Arsenal and Tottenham - joined Roma at the start of the summer transfer window from French outfit Lyon.

Aouar started the game in midfield against Partizani and was set to see out the remainder of the match given Roma were unable to make any more substitutions.

The 25-year-old looked confused when he was called over by Mourinho as play continued and briefly entertained a discussion with the manager before realising he was being brought off.

The fourth official momentarily attempted to intervene before Mourinho and Aouar walked back towards the bench as Roma continued to play with 10-men.

The midfielder then stood in front of the packed bench while he went down the line of players and staff high-fiving each member along the way.

Aouar appeared to accept the reasons why he had been substituted with Italian news outlet Corriere dello Sport revealing that it was a planned move by Mourinho to protect his star and also make the match more fair.

Partizani were already a man down after manager Zoran Zekic made a mistake during a change that saw him try to replace one of his star's with a player that already been brought off.

Mourinho wanted to give his opposition a chance to see out the remainder of the game on level terms and therefore removed Aouar to balance the teams.

There was also concern for Aouar after he was subjected to several crunching tackles and Mourinho wanted to protect the midfielder from injury.

Roma kick-start their new Serie A campaign against Salernitana on Sunday.