Luke Shaw has claimed that Newcastle United did not beat Manchester United "on quality" after he claimed that the Magpies had more "passion and hunger" than the Red Devils.
Joe Willock and Callum Wilson's second-half strikes ensured that a raucous St James' Park had plenty to celebrate when the full-time whistle blew. In a reverse of the Carabao Cup final, Newcastle exacted their revenge by leapfrogging their top four rivals and moving ahead of Man United into third place on goal difference.
Eddie Howe's side dominated the majority of the match as they recorded 22 shots to their opponents' six. But Shaw believes the reason his side walked away with nothing to show was not due to the quality on display but from a lack of effort among those in red.
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"Not good enough," he told Sky Sports when asked for his thoughts on the game. "I feel like every time I speak after games, bad results, I’m always honest.
"Us as a team, we have to be honest, I do feel Newcastle are a very good side but I don’t think they won the game on quality today, they won it on passion and hunger, desire, attitude and they clearly had that higher motivation than we had. That can’t be possible.
"I feel like we say the same things every time we lose, like I say it’s not acceptable and we know that. It was a massive game today and they wanted it more. At Man United that cannot be possible."
"I think it’s unacceptable and we can all admit that," he added. "It’s not what we want to set out to be, in big games like this you need that motivation, you need that passion and hunger, attitude, because it’s an extremely tough place to come to, here [St James' Park].
"If we don’t have that we’re going to suffer and it was obvious on the pitch. We didn’t create too much on the pitch and I think maybe we can say it’s been coming since before the international break.
"We dropped levels and it was clear to see them levels were not there. We have three days to pick it back up because Brentford’s going to be a very tough game."
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