Manchester United defender Luke Shaw tore into his teammates for their lack of "passion" and "attitude" after the Red Devils' 2-0 defeat to Newcastle on Sunday.
United put in a less than inspiring showing at St James' Park as they struggled to get to grips with their hosts throughout the 90 minutes. Goals from Joe Willock and Callum Wilson eventually condemned United to defeat and saw them relinquish third spot in the Premier League.
It now leaves Erik ten Hag 's side in a battle to finish in the Champions League places come the end of the campaign. Shaw did not mince his words in attempting to give an assessment of his side's drab showing in the North East.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the final whistle, he said: " Not good enough. I feel like every time I speak after games, bad results, I’m always honest.
"Us as a team, we have to be honest, I do feel Newcastle are a very good side but I don’t think they won the game on quality today, they won it on passion and hunger, desire, attitude and they clearly had that higher motivation than we had. That can’t be possible.
"I feel like we say the same things every time we lose, like I say it’s not acceptable and we know that. It was a massive game today and they wanted it more. At Man Utd that cannot be possible."
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Worryingly, Shaw then admitted that he could have seen a performance like the one at St James' Park coming over a fortnight ago. The defender added: " I think it’s unacceptable and we can all admit that. It’s not what we want to set out to be, in big games like this you need that motivation, you need that passion and hunger, attitude, because it’s an extremely tough place to come to, here.
"If we don’t have that we’re going to suffer and it was obvious on the pitch. We didn’t create too much on the pitch and I think maybe we can say it’s been coming since before the international break.
"We dropped levels and it was clear to see them levels were not there. We have three days to pick it back up because Brentford’s going to be a very tough game."
Asked if the squad needed to be told a few home truths, Shaw then revealed that talks between the squad had taken place to find a reason for the woeful performance.
"I’m not gonna go too much into that but definitely, the players had a bit of a chat in the changing room after with no staff around because it’s down to us players on the pitch and like I said, it was nowhere near good enough. We had to speak out in front of each other.
"I think it’s important, we’re a team and when we go out on that pitch we all need to fight for each other and I think sometimes this season it’s maybe not shown like that. We’ve had a good chat in the changing room after, I’m sure we’ll go over it again and all speak again because I think it’s important.
"We need to realise them problems and realise them quick, change them around because we can still have a very good season but with results like this and performances like this then we can’t."
