Noel Hunt believes the Royals can take a number of positives from Saturday's game at Newcastle, but rued the home side's Premiership pedigree and experience.

United's starting XI cost roughly £35million to assemble and has in the region of 1,000 Premier League appearances between them.

For long periods we more than held our own, and Noel said, "They've got players who've played week-in week-out in the Premiership. From the back four right through they've been in the Premiership for a few years and that showed a little bit.

"I thought the first half was tight, they scored against the run of play, they didn't like us having the ball and we passed it around well for 20-25 minutes.

"Goals change games, it was disappointing to concede but it was a good header. We came in 1-0 down, they scored a good second and that killed us."