Blackburn deserved to win, admits Peter

Daniel Butterworth’s brace either side of half time saw Rovers pick up all three points, after Yasin Ben El-Mhanni had put the Magpies ahead at Little Benton.

But the hosts struggled to carve out too many goalscoring opportunities against Damien Johnson’s side, and Beardsley believes that was a key factor in his young team’s defeat.

“I thought the best team won, if I’m being honest. They were more committed, hungrier and I think overall they deserved it,” he told nufc.co.uk. “It was two disappointing goals from our point of view, but they took advantage of the situation.

“I can’t argue – we never really looked like scoring. I can’t remember their goalie making one brilliant save.

“Blackburn worked hard, they worked their socks off, and you can have no complaints. If you look at it, that’s what football is sometimes, the best footballing team doesn’t always win.

“We obviously played all the football, but ultimately couldn’t deliver the final pass or the final shot.”

Both of Rovers’ goals came courtesy of mistakes from United, who failed to properly clear their lines on both occasions.

And while Beardsley says errors such as those that led are unfortunate, he is hoping his side – who have play-off aspirations – will be able to recover quickly from their setback.

“They were both mistakes, and to be fair, the two people who made the mistakes held their hands up. That’s part of the game,” he said.

“It is what it is, and I never have a problem with that. If you look at Karl Darlow the other night, he made a mistake – it’s nothing more than that, it’s not a lack of concentration, he just unfortunately made a mistake, and it happens.

“That’s what we did. We gave two balls away in that third of the pitch and it cost us two goals. It happens at every level, but it’s one of those things that we have to get over and for these players, they need to learn quickly.

“We need to win two out of four (league games) now, which is doable, when you look at what we’ve done over the season. But you just never know how this affects them, and that’s the thing that we need to work against to make sure that they bounce back.

“After North Shields they bounced back against Bristol City and after this, hopefully they’ll bounce back against Southampton.”