We Paid Price For Missed Chances, Admits Van Gaal

Mitrovic, 21, grew up in Serbia idolising Rooney and says he was honoured to be on the same pitch as the Man United and England captain.

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.

He said: “In recent times, we’ve done very well against them – obviously this year at Old Trafford and last season we’ve got very good results, so we’re very confident of going there and causing them a problem”.

“We can’t keep going on conceding three goals every game so we have to work on that and create the chances without giving goals away”, Rooney continued.

Earlier, United failed to claim victory in this week’s clash in Premier League as they were held by Newcastle to a 3-3 draw, despite taking the lead twice over the course of the 90 minutes.

Van Gaal, who could be seen incandescent on the touchline at times, said his players only had themselves to blame for caving under the pressure from the home side.

“We have a fantastic defence, but we conceded three goals, now is the defence weak? You don’t realise what a monumental effort that is, to come back from 2-0 and 3-2, and to perform as we did”.

“I’m very disappointed, we’re very disappointed”, he said.

With West Ham winning 3-1 at AFC Bournemouth, United dropped to sixth in the standings, two points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham after just one win in eight league matches. “No. We were unlucky in decisions of the referee and a deflected shot and we did not finish our chances”, van Gaal was quoted as saying by the British media on Tuesday.

They wanted to attack, and that is the difference. “We have to score one more than the opponent and we didn’t do that”.

Smalling said: “We were both jostling for positions throughout the game”.

“The heavyweight wrestling between Mitrovic and Smalling, you can clearly see that he [Mitrovic] is pushing the head of Smalling to the ground”.