Rooney issues dropped points warning

Wayne Rooney has warned Manchester United they cannot afford to keep throwing away points if they are to hit their targets this season.

United squandered 2-0 and 3-2 leads at struggling Newcastle on Tuesday evening to draw 3-3, in the process slipping to sixth place in the Barclays Premier League table.

Rooney, who edged to within eight goals of Sir Bobby Charlton's club record of 249 with a double at St James' Park, admitted that his side have to find a balance between attack and defence after a game which went some of the way towards exciting the travelling fans.

He told MUTV: “After going 2-0 up, we were in control of the game, and then we've let them back into it. To then get our third goal and concede again was disappointing from us.”

They were silly goals to concede on our behalf and they were avoidable. They have cost us two points so we're disappointed, we can't keep going on conceding three goals every game, so we have to work on that and create the chances without giving goals away.”

The United skipper added: “You can score as many goals as you want, but if you keep conceding goals, then it's a problem. We have to keep trying to get that balance right and keep creating chances, scoring goals and keeping them out.”

It started brightly for Rooney and his team-mates when he gave them the lead with a penalty in the ninth minute after defender Chancel Mbemba was adjudged to have handled Daley Blind’s corner. And when Jesse Lingard extended United’s lead seven minutes before half time, they looked to be in cruise control.

But Georginio Wijnaldum pulled one back just before half-time and when Aleksandar Mitrovic levelled from the spot in the sixty seventh minute after being hauled down by Chris Smalling, the Magpies were in the ascendancy.

Rooney's well-taken second looked to have secured a 3-2 victory with 11 minutes remaining, but Newcastle full-back Paul Dummett snatched a point at the death when his 90th minute goal found the top corner with the aid of a deflection off Chris Smalling passed a despairing David de Gea.

United have now won just twice in 11 games in all competitions, went into the game with manager Louis van Gaal admitting even he had been bored by some of their recent performances, and at 2-2, there were chants of “Attack, attack, attack” from the supporters high up in the north stand.

Van Gaal, who has only seen his team score 24 goals in 20 league games prior to the match, blamed the negative tactics adopted by the club's opponents for their recent difficulties after the game, but Rooney insists scoring goals remains their focus as they prepare for Sunday's trip to rivals Liverpool.

Rooney, 30, said: “We’re always trying to create chances. Obviously we know that's our aim, that's what we work on every day at the training ground. Sometimes it's difficult, but on nights like tonight we did it so we need to keep working and keep trying to improve.''

• Localsport