Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez has admitted that he is not too disheartened at falling to a 4-1 defeat away at Manchester United.

The Magpies took the lead in Saturday's late kickoff, becoming the first side to find a way past David de Gea at Old Trafford since Gylfi Sigurdsson - then of Swansea City - seven matches ago in April.

Newcastle conceded twice in the final eight minutes of the first half, however, and two more goals followed for the Red Devils in the second half as they eased over the line for a 10th successive home win.

Benitez concedes that his side were always going to find it tough to see things through, having failed to sit on Dwight Gayle's early strike until the interval.

"I am proud of my players because we knew that would be a difficult game," he told BBC Sport. "After conceding the first and especially the second goal that made a huge difference. Against United players of this level you have to play almost perfectly.

"United have five or six players at 1.90m, so that is hard to defend against. We took more risks after conceding the third, and we eventually conceded another. And that is hard, because we knew then we couldn't win and so retaining belief is quite hard.

"But the reality is that for 30 minutes we played well against top-class players."

Newcastle have now lost their last three league games, with this their heaviest defeat since returning to the Premier League.