Louis van Gaal blamed his side’s finishing as Manchester United lost a third successive league game for the first time in 14 years – a run of defeats that could cost the club a Champions League place and one that has not seen a single United goal.

Robin van Persie had a second-half penalty saved as United went down 1-0 at home to West Bromwich Albion, with Van Gaal admitting he knew the visitors would defend in numbers and accepting his side did not do enough to break through.

“The last three defeats have all been against sides who set themselves up to defend,” he said. “We are creating chances all the time, but we have to improve our finishing. You cannot attack for the whole 90 minutes, have all the possession and chances, and then lose to a single free-kick. But that is what happened. The free-kick took a deflection too. So you cannot say we were the lucky team today, but it is up to us to make more of our possibilities. We have made our run in a little bit more difficult than it was before.”

Tony Pulis made no apologies for keeping nine men behind the ball most of the game, and neither did Darren Fletcher, the former Old Trafford favourite who made a successful first return. “You have to be resilient when you come here, and you have to concentrate,” the West Brom manager said. “I lost my temper a bit with one of the players before kick-off because he was looking at the other results. That’s the trouble with these kick-off times, you don’t need that distraction. I was really pleased in the end, though we did have a bit of luck, I will admit that. And it was never a penalty. The linesman was closer than the ref, and he gave a corner.”

Van Gaal accused West Brom of parking the bus, but Fletcher took that as a compliment. “We knew we had to keep them in front of us,” he said. “We had to stop them playing between our lines, and that’s what we did.”