Rafa Benitez couldn’t resist taking a sly dig at his old foe Jose Mourinho after Manchester United secured victory over his Newcastle side.

The pair have had a stormy relationship dating back to Mourinho’s first spell as Chelsea manager while Benitez was in charge at Liverpool.

They went toe-to-toe again at Old Trafford as the Red Devils came from behind to defeat the Magpies despite Dwight Gayle opening the scoring in Manchester.

Paul Pogba and £75million summer recruit Romelu Lukaku were on the scoresheet in a 4-1 win for the hosts and Benitez highlighted the disparity in the value of the two squads in his assessment.

“For sure. This time, you see the difference between money spent,” Benitez said after the match.

“It’s not something we didn’t know, we knew it would make a massive difference between both teams, but I am really pleased with what I saw in the first 30 minutes.

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“I think it’s a quite simple analysis, a really good first half for 30 minutes, everything was right, we were working hard, we had a clear idea what to do, we did well.

“And then we conceded a goal, then the second goal made a difference in terms of the mentality. We had the chance of [Isaac] Hayden later on, but we couldn’t score.

“The second half was more difficult because the belief that we had in the first half, to keep this belief until the end, it depended on the goal. And then when we conceded a third goal it was a different game.

“But I am really pleased and really proud of my players in their first 30 minutes.

“And after when you pay big money for players, they can make the difference, so you make mistakes, you pay for that because you play against top-class players.”

Pogba, who remains Manchester United’s record signing, was back in the side after a spell out of action due to injury.