Manchester United were still known as Newton Heath and were only playing their second season in the Football League the last time they got off to such a poor start to a home league campaign. It was the 1893-94 season, 131 years ago, when they averaged crowds of just 8,000 to Bank Street, Clayton, not far from where the Etihad Stadium stands today.
James West was the team manager at the time, although he had the title of full-time secretary, and he could hardly imagine how big the club would one day become. Likewise, the United fans who stuck around long enough to boo their team against Brighton probably can’t believe how far their club has fallen and the frightening reality is that they probably haven’t hit the mark yet. bottom this season.
United are historically bad: the statistics confirm it and their manager, Ruben Amorim, sees it and feels it and has no desire to hide the cold, hard truth. United, he says, must first acknowledge their incompetence and then do something.
“We are perhaps the worst team in the history of Manchester United,” said the head coach. “I know you want to make headlines, but I say this because we need to recognize this and change this. There you have it: your headlines.
It was United’s sixth defeat in 12 Premier League matches at Old Trafford, including four since Amorim replaced Erik ten Hag at the start of November, and their 10th league defeat to date in a campaign which included Portuguese coach still fears it could turn into a real fight. against relegation.
They have a 10 point buffer to the drop zone at the moment, but keep it that way and things could get a lot trickier, although it’s hard to consider beyond four, perhaps five other teams as clear candidates to go down at this point.
United’s defeats should hardly come as a surprise anymore, let alone at home where they so often look petrified and paralyzed, but there will always be a layer of intrigue around how a team assembled at such an exorbitant cost could go on to impose itself. depths. The starting XI that started against Brighton cost £440million and once again left you wondering how so much money could have been spent for so little in return.
Amorim spoke about the challenges of trying to move to a new system mid-season with little time to work on the training pitch, especially when the team is struggling badly and so many players lack confidence and are afraid.
But Brighton’s first goal wasn’t about formations, tactics or anything like that, it was about a player switching off and completely failing to anticipate an obvious threat and summed up where United were at this point. moment.
Amorim even said that United had discussed this issue before the match, but Noussair Mazraoui was sleeping when Carlos Baleba sent the ball over and behind for Kaoru Mitoma to race on goal and square for Yankuba Minteh to score. Brighton couldn’t have imagined it would be this simple. It was the fifth consecutive home game in which United had conceded first and third times they had done so in the opening five minutes. It was unforgivable and set the tone for an afternoon which had started movingly with Old Trafford gathering before kick-off to bid an emotional farewell to its late and great former striker Denis Law, who died on Friday at the age 84.
Brighton, who came into this competition with just one league win in their previous nine games, are relishing playing United, who have failed to record a shot on target in open play at home for the first time in nine years. This is their third consecutive victory at Old Trafford (all under different managers) and their sixth victory in the last seven league meetings between clubs who, through their management and recruiting style in recent years, have not could be more diametrically opposed.
Bruno Fernandes’ penalty briefly gave United some hope, but the reality is that Brighton were better all over the pitch, their work rate and quality exemplified by United’s old boy’s attacking duo Danny Welbeck and Joao Pedro.
Baleba – who is proving to be a real replacement for Moisés Caicedo – and the equally impressive Yasin Ayari led the midfield while Mitoma and Minteh excelled out wide.
Baleba’s power and physicality overwhelmed United while Ayari’s runs and smart moves wreaked havoc all afternoon. Recruited from Swedish club AIK in 2023, Ayari played a central role in Brighton’s second and third goals. For the first of these, he nimbly avoided Manuel Ugarte – who had a ridiculous game – and advanced 40 yards through the middle before finding Minteh.
Ugarte was booked for a poor late challenge on Ayari just as the Brighton midfielder released the ball. Minteh’s cross was a peach, but Diogo Dalot applied no pressure to stop it and Mitoma was the first to reach the far post, ahead of Mazraoui, to score.
Brighton’s third was another terrible mistake from Andre Onana, but it was shaped again by Ayari’s quick thinking and movement as United were once again given a vivid illustration of what the patterns of game.
Ayari beat the offside trap with a perfectly timed dart to run onto Solly March’s quick pass from Jan Paul van Hecke’s ball. His cross should have been easily smothered by Onana, but he knocked the ball away as he dived to catch it, allowing substitute Georginio Rutter to turn and finish into an empty net.
It was the Cameroon goalkeeper’s seventh error leading to a goal since joining United 18 months ago, including four in the last six weeks under Amorim.
United only beat Southampton on Thursday because Onana had given them the platform to do so with a series of superb saves, but it was once again the goalkeeper at his erratic and error-prone worst. It was also the signal for many fans to come out.
What a mess.