Senne Lammens hit out at “every aspect” of Manchester United’s display against Newcastle and Rio Ferdinand wasn’t impressed either.
Michael Carrick had overseen six wins and a draw as interim manager, leading United into third place in the Premier League, before his nadir at the helm at St James’ Park.
United were a man up on Newcastle for most of the game after Jacob Ramsey was shown a harsh yellow card for diving by referee Peter Bankes in first-half stoppage-time.
There was still enough time before the break for Anthony Gordon to give Newcastle the lead from the penalty spot and for Bruno Fernandes to make amends for conceding the spot kick by delivering a brilliant cross for Casemiro to nod in and draw the Red Devils level.
But Carrick’s side failed to make the most of their advantage in the second half and were made to pay in the 90th minute when substitute William Osula scored an absolute howitzer to win the game for Newcastle and bring Carrick’s unbeaten start at Old Trafford to an end.
Carrick bristled when TNT Sports reporter Jules Breach questioned the “character” of his team after the game.
Breach asked: “You’ve shown so much character in your games, why was that lacking?” Carrick swiftly responded: “It wasn’t. It wasn’t.”
An uncomfortable silence followed by Breach pushed Carrick on what he felt was lacking in the performance.
Carrick added: “It’s easy to feel that just because you don’t win a game of football. Just general things, the quality.
“We’ve lost one game, alright? We haven’t played well enough, but in the grand scheme of things, we’re in a decent position.”
But Lammens disagreed with his manager, claiming “our mentality needs to be better” and that “every aspect” of their performance was lacking against Newcastle.
“That is always a bad feeling to lose, just in general today was not our day,” Lammens said. “It was nowhere near good enough.
“We scored our goal just before half-time and it was really important to give us a good feeling going into half time.
“When we step out on the pitch for the second half it needs to be better, I think our mentality needs to be better. In every aspect it was not our game today.
“I’m not sure what we were lacking. Every team has those games, but you can’t put it like that you always have to perform, especially here.
“Heading into half-time we had a pretty good feeling because we scored and playing against 10 men you want to finish it off, we couldn’t get our rhythm going and we need to learn a lot from this.”
Rio Ferdinand also gave a damning assessment of United’s performance, writing on X after Osula’s late winner: ‘Newcastle deserves that…We’ve not been at the races!’