Newcastle 3 Manchester United 3 reaction: Louis van Gaal blames players for throwing away victory

Van Gaal admitted that his players were guilty of throwing the victory away on Tyneside

Louis van Gaal with the assistant manager, Ryan Giggs (Getty Images)

Louis van Gaal blamed his Manchester United players for throwing away victory at Newcastle after Paul Dummett’s 90th minute equaliser punished the visitors following a succession of missed chances.

Despite two Wayne Rooney goals and a first-half strike from Jesse Lingard, a series of wasted opportunities allowed Newcastle to snatch a draw at St James’ Park, leaving United with just two wins from their last 12 games in all competitions.

The failure to win saw United drop to sixth position ahead of Sunday’s trip to Anfield to face Liverpool, with Tottenham able to move five points clear in fourth place with a victory at home to Leicester on Wednesday.

And Van Gaal admitted that his players were guilty of throwing the victory away on Tyneside.

"We have given it away – I have told that to my players,” Van Gaal said. “So of course it feels like a defeat.

"We could have scored six goals easily here and we did not. If we had, it would have been three successive wins at the start of the year going into Liverpool.

"It is not so interesting to create chances. In every press conference I say you have to score one more goal than the opponent."

“But we threw it away, we should have finished it much earlier. Lingard, Rooney, (Marouane) Fellaini could have finished it for us.

“Everyone knows it is our fault, not the referee or our opponent.”

Rooney’s double took his personal tally against Newcastle to fourteen Premier League goals, but the United captain echoed Van Gaal’s comments by claiming the draw felt like more than two dropped points.

"It does feel like a defeat,” Rooney said. “After scoring three good goals, it was maybe a lack of concentration - not staying with runners for the third - and that is disappointing.

"If you take a two-goal lead, we should be taking all three points and killing the game off. We didn’t take all our chances and we have been punished for it.

"We always want to try and play entertaining attacking football that is what we work on and try and do, and hopefully we can come up with more solutions."

Meanwhile, Newcastle manager Steve McClaren insisted his team’s performance was a reward for their progress and fighting spirit during a run of four straight defeats.

“At the end of the night, we showed what we are all about. The players have shown everything tonight,” McClaren said. “They started well and we had more possession than Manchester United, we went behind, came back, had another blow, but deserved to equalise at the end.

“We haven’t been getting the rewards over the last four or five weeks, so to score in the last minute was like a win for us.”