Ten Hag blames dismal Man Utd defending for Brighton defeat

Under-fire Manchester United brag Erik 10 Hag blamed his side’s defending for a 2-1 decision to Brighton connected Saturday aft Joao Pedro headed successful a 95th infinitesimal winner.

United looked to person snatched a constituent erstwhile Amad Diallo’s deflected effort cancelled retired Danny Welbeck’s archetypal fractional opener for Brighton.

But Brazilian guardant Pedro was fixed acres of abstraction to caput successful astatine the backmost station to springiness Brighton’s 31-year-old brag Fabian Hurzeler a imagination location Premier League debut.

United person spent heavy successful the transportation model to reenforce their defence with the signings of Noussair Mazraoui, Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro.

De Ligt was 1 of those astatine responsibility for the victor arsenic the Dutch planetary and Scott McTominay were caught nether the formation of Simon Adingra’s transverse to prime retired Pedro.

“If you support the extremity similar we bash past you driblet points,” said Ten Hag.

“We concede 2 brushed goals wherever we should enactment amended arsenic a team. We person to beryllium live successful specified moments.”

Defeat puts the spotlight backmost connected Ten Hag with Liverpool acceptable to sojourn Old Trafford adjacent weekend.

The erstwhile Ajax brag survived an interior reappraisal astatine the extremity of past season, contempt finishing eighth successful the Premier League, acknowledgment to winning the FA Cup.

United got a much-needed 1-0 triumph against Fulham to unfastened the play past play acknowledgment to Joshua Zirkzee’s precocious winner.

But the performances successful some their archetypal 2 league matches of the caller run person done small to suggest determination volition beryllium a marked betterment from a dismal play successful 2023/24.

Brighton thrashed Everton 3-0 distant successful Hurzeler’s archetypal lucifer successful complaint and showed they volition beryllium a contender to get backmost into European shot adjacent season.

“Winners successful the past infinitesimal are ever emotional,” said Hurzeler.

“The astir important happening for maine is the cognition of the players, they ever had the content successful each other.”

The Seagulls took the pb connected 32 minutes erstwhile Harry Maguire failed to chopped retired a unsafe transverse and Kaoru Mitoma rolled the shot backmost crossed extremity for Welbeck to pat successful for his 100th vocation goal.

Within seconds the visitors thought they were level erstwhile Marcus Rashford bundled successful astatine the backmost station lone to beryllium denied by the offside flag.

Brighton flew retired of the traps aft the interruption but failed to physique connected their advantage.

James Milner had an effort cleared disconnected the enactment by Diogo Dalot earlier Welbeck headed disconnected the bar.

United had hardly been successful the Brighton fractional since the restart until Diallo drove forward, chopped wrong onto his near ft and recovered the nett via a deflection disconnected Jan Paul van Hecke.

Zirkzee had replaced Mason Mount astatine the interruption but aft a hero’s debut, the Dutchman was the villain for what should person been a 2nd United goal.

In a blistering counter-attack, Diallo fed Bruno Fernandes and his debased transverse was fired goalwards by Garnacho.

However, the shot clipped Zirkzee’s genu connected its mode successful and the guardant was ruled offside aft a VAR review.

That proved to beryllium the turning constituent arsenic it was Brighton who got the decisive 3rd goal.

Pedro easy pulled distant from McTominay and substitute De Ligt to find the abstraction to caput backmost crossed Andre Onana into the acold corner.