Phil Jones played his first game for United since the final day of last season against Sunderland. Whilst disappointed with the result, Jones was happy to get some playing time after such a lengthy period on the sidelines.

“I’m knackered to be honest,” he admitted. “It wasn’t the best of pitches to play on either. It was quite heavy on the legs but I’m delighted to get through 90 minutes. I’m buzzing about that. It’s been difficult. I’ve had my downs. I picked up a few niggles and had surgery on my knee so I’ve had a pretty wretched four or five months. I’ve been in the gym every day and it’s not easy. I had to concentrate on getting myself fit and worked quite hard to get to where I am now so I’m just delighted to be back. I’ll feel stiff on Wednesday but everything is fine. Hopefully I can push on now, get back in the team and prove why I should be here.”

Jones was disappointed that United conceded from a corner and blames them falling asleep.

“We should have switched on and dealt with the corner,” he added. “We shouldn’t be getting punished on set-pieces. It’s happened and we still had chances to go on and draw, if not win, but it just wasn’t our night. There were a lot of positives. We controlled a lot of the play – we were lacking a bit with the final cross or final ball and perhaps should have finished it off. But I think we were a bit unfortunate.”