Latest from the ongoing Premier League action, Brighton secured a convincing win over arch-rivals Manchester United, beating them 3-1 at Old Trafford on Saturday. The hosts were beaten courtesy of goals from Danny Welbeck in the first half, followed by Pascal Gross and Joao Pedro who added goals in the second half, taking advantage of some poor defending by Man. Utd.
The hosts did manage to chip in with a goal late in the second half by Hannibal Mejbri, but it was not enough to save them from the defeat. The Manchester side has a very promising start in the match, with Rasmus Hojlund and Sergio Reguilon impressing and Marcus Rashford looking lively on the left wing.
The opening goal of the match came in the 20th minute when Danny Welbeck converted a cross from Simon Adingra that went through the legs of Adam Lallana who produced a vicious dummy and fell right to Welbeck. The former Man Utd striker was left unmarked and converted the spot opening the scoring for Brighton. This was Welbeck’s fourth Premier League goal against his former side, and ironically, this is also the most of any player to have previously played for Manchester United in the competition.
The second goal for Brighton came in the 53rd minute as a result of some sloppy defending by Manchester where neither Lisandro Martinez nor Victor Lindelof reacted quickly enough to intercept Tariq Lamptey’s passive pass to Pascal Gross, who wasted no time to double the lead for the visitor.
71 minutes into the game, Joao Pedro converted a spot to score the third goal for Brighton when he was allowed plenty of space at the top of the area to curl home a delightful goal for the visitors. It was yet another display of poor coordination between the Red defenders.
Manchester United finally got their first and only goal of the match when Hannibal Mejbri fired an absolute stunner from deep into the nets in the 73rd minute to get his side some consolation. This was also Mejbri’s first goal for his side. Manchester United further made some desperate attempts to fight back, with the closest being Victor Lindelof headed in the 76th minute went over the crossbar.
Brighton was clearly the better side at Old Trafford, not allowing any mistakes by the hosts to go unpunished. They now jump up to fourth place after a fourth win in their opening five league games this season, boosting them further ahead of their first Europa League game on Thursday.
Erik ten Hag’s boys clearly have a lot of regrouping to do as his side was undone by some questionable defending for all three of Brighton’s goals. As a result, Manchester United have now lost three of their opening five Premier League games. The club has lost in such a fashion for the first time in 34 years, and the defeat also ended their unbeaten winning streak of 20 games at home in the Premier League.
