Maguire blames Carrington training ground closure for Man Utd's abject display

Harry Maguire believes that the closure of Manchester United's training ground had a huge impact on their performance last night.

The Red Devils could only muster a shoddy 1-1 draw against Newcastle at St James Park - that could have been a lot worse for the visitors.

Allan Saint-Maximin scored to take the Magpies into the lead but missed a glorious chance soon after that was saved by David de Gea.

Edinson Cavani came off the bench to grab the equaliser for United while their goalkeeper continued to impress that saw the spoils shared.

But it was an alarming performance for Ralf Rangnick to decipher, who had over two weeks to prepare for this match.

Prior to the Newcastle game, United hadn't played since December 11 when they scraped victory past Norwich at Carrow Road through a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty.

Covid has swept through the Premier League which saw matches against Brighton and Brentford postponed while United's training complex at Carrington had to be closed due to an outbreak.

Maguire alluded to that in his post-match interview but insisted it was no excuse for their performance.

He said: "The training ground has been shut, half the lads playing today are recovering from the virus.

"So, of course, it is not going to help us. We don't want to use it as an excuse, but, of course, it has a big impact on the game."

However, United are not the only side to have been ravaged by the virus in some form with every team in the Premier League being affected in some way.

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Maguire's manager was less forgiving after Rangnick admitted that he was left shocked by the lack of physicality his side showed on Monday night.

"Today we didn't control the game apart from a few moments," the German said. "It's all about energy, physicality and who wins the second balls. In all those areas we weren't at our best.

"You have to be ready and able to win those direct duels and this was not that often the case. When we were in possession we had too many giveaways and even with the goal, that doesn't make things easy.

"Today was not a question of body language, it was a question of body physicality.

"If you want to be competitive here you have to get physical and this was not the case in many parts of the game.

"Our biggest problem was the mistakes we made. Even when we scored the equaliser we were not really controlling the game and taking the right decisions.

"I didn't like the performance at all."