Smalling Disappointed Not To Grab Winner

Chris Smalling was left to rue Manchester United's bad luck after a "disappointing" 0-0 draw with Newcastle United at Old Trafford.

The centre-back produced another accomplished performance at the heart of the defence, helping the Reds keep a third successive clean sheet in the league, but the goals just would not go in at the other end.

The 25-year-old came closest to scoring for United when his late header hit Tim Krul's left-hand post but he admitted it just was not the Reds' day: “We had quite a few corners and they defended very well but I’ve headed it towards that corner and you’re hoping it’ll sneak in but, for a number of our chances, it just didn’t cross over that line and it’s unfortunate.

"It's massively disappointing,” Smalling told MUTV. “We've come in and it's like you've lost a game, it's definitely two points dropped.

“In the first 20 minutes, we were terrific. We really pressed them and, even at half-time, I thought if we kept playing like that, we’d get the chances and we did get the chance in the second half but they had so many bodies on the line it just wasn’t our day.”

Despite the Reds dropping their first points of the season, the England centre-half was happy with the team's performance: "I think today was probably our best performance [of the season]. I think, even in previous wins, we haven’t played as well as today and yet, today, we’ve dropped the points. But, if we keep creating chances like today, more often than not we’ll score goals.”

The players were naturally dejected after dominating the match but failing to maintain the 100 per cent start to the campaign.

“We’re really down in there as we didn’t reward ourselves for our good play,” added Smalling. “Luckily, enough we’ve got another game on Wednesday so we don’t have to feel sorry for ourselves for a week. We can learn from it and, if we create that number of chances on Wednesday, I think we’ll score the goals.”

The Reds travel to Belgium for the second leg of the Champions League qualifier against Club Brugge on Wednesday and Smalling is confident United will qualify.

“We’re looking forward to it," he stated. "To get back at it. The last two performances have been a big improvement and I think the fact there’s so much riding on that game, we’ll go there and create the chances like today and get a comfortable win.”