Manchester United's midfield numbers show why Erik ten Hag still wants Frenkie de Jong

Time was running out on Monday Night Football to dissect Manchester United's supine performance at Newcastle, so Gary Neville presented a comparison of the two midfields.

Newcastle's trio of Bruno Guimaraes, Joe Willock and Sean Longstaff had higher numbers for touches, possession won, duels won, shots attempted and touches in the opponent's area than the combination of Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay and Marcel Sabitzer.

Newcastle's midfield had six more touches, regained possession on seven more occasions, won 22 duels to United's 15, had nine times as many attempts at goal and eight more touches in the opponent's area.

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The influential Guimaraes was the man of the match, Willock got the winner and Longstaff performed like the £50million midfielder Newcastle valued him at when United came calling in 2019.

United have yearned for Casemiro when they have fortuitously won without him, so you can imagine how abysmal they were at St James' Park in defeat. The 2-0 reverse on Sunday was an overall worse performance than the 7-0 annihilation at Anfield.

With every week, United are also missing Christian Eriksen more. Erik ten Hag has emphasised the importance of control and United have that with Eriksen. They seldom do without him.

United coped commendably with Eriksen in the treatment room in a February of eight fixtures in 26 days, a month when Fred came to the fore, starting every match.

Fred had a few wobbles. His partnership with Sabitzer never truly convinced while he had a hopeless first 52 minutes in Camp Nou. Then he played in Marcus Rashford down the right-hand channel to equalise.

In the return leg, Fred heralded United's comeback with