While they may have tasted defeat, some of Newcastle’s top players looked back to their best on Saturday, including Jonjo Shelvey.
The Magpies were able to see a lot more of the ball at Old Trafford, and Shelvey used it better than he has all season.
Newcastle’s number eight created the second goal, firing a brilliant cross into the feet of Yoshinori Muto.
Without the 26-year-old, Newcastle are a much worse team. If we’re going to survive this season, we need the midfielder to be playing every week.
But the saddest thing about the Palace and Leicester games was that Shelvey was able to have no impact on proceedings.
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That all changed against Manchester United, and he was able to manipulate possession and create multiple openings for Newcastle.
As well as going forward, he was strong going backwards as well, making tackles and retrieving possession.
While the collapse was tough to take, we can take positives from the performance, one of which being how good our playmaker was at times.
