Талбайдаа хоёр гоолын давуу эхэлсэн Манчестер Юнайтед тоглолтын төгсгөлд Брайтон энд Хов Альбионд 3:2-ын харьцаатай хожигдсон нь улирлын эхний цом авах найдвар нь тасрахад хүргэв.
Тоглолтын 8 дахь минутад академийн тоглогч Шиа Лэйси гоолдож, хоёр минутын дараа Мэйсон Маунт тооны харьцааг 2:0 болгосноор Манчестер Юнайтед тун таатай эхлүүлсэн. Гэвч Брайтон энд Хов Альбион эхний үеийн нэмэлт цагт Харалампос Костуласын гоолоор зөрүүг багасгаж, хоёрдугаар үед тоглолтыг бүрэн эргүүлж чадлаа. Паскаль Гросс тооны харьцааг тэнцүүлсний дараа 69 дэх минутад Максим Де Кюйпер ялалтын гоолыг оруулснаар Манчестер Юнайтед 1976 оноос хойш анх удаа Олд Траффорд цэнгэлдэхэд хоёр гоолоор тэргүүлж байгаад хожигдсон тохиолдол боллоо.
Тоглолтын дараа дасгалжуулагч Майкл Каррик хариуцлагыг өөртөө хүлээнэ гэдгээ илэрхийлж, багийн хамгаалалтын алдаа болон тоглолтын эрчмийг барьж чадаагүй нь ийм үр дүнд хүргэснийг онцоллоо. Ялангуяа сэлгээгээр талбайд гарсан Кобби Майну, Бруну Фернандеш нар Маркус Рэшфордыг боломжоор хангасан ч гоол болгож чадаагүй нь багийн довтолгооны үр ашиггүй байдлыг харуулсан юм.
Энэхүү ялагдал нь улирлын эхнээс ажиглагдсан багийн тогтворгүй тоглолт болон хамгаалалтын эмх цэгцгүй байдлыг дахин тодотголоо. Хөгжөөн дэмжигчид тоглолтын төгсгөлд сэтгэл дундуур байгаагаа илэрхийлэн эсэргүүцлээ илэрхийлсэн нь багийн доторх хурцадмал байдлыг харуулж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
It would have been unbelievable had it not been horribly predictable.
When are Manchester United safe in a game? Not when they have a man advantage for over an hour against Manchester City, not when they are leading 2-1 in the 88th minute against Everton — and not when they are leading Brighton & Hove Albion 2-0 after 10 minutes at home.
The first door has shut on United’s hopes of winning silverware this season after their 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday. Rather than build momentum before the international break, injecting positivity after a series of troubling results that has led to discontent among the fanbase, the on-pitch issues that have cropped up this season came to a chaotic and costly head at Old Trafford.
When academy graduate Shea Lacey, on his first start for the club, slammed in a superb goal after just eight minutes and Mason Mount doubled United’s advantage two minutes later, it was a golden opportunity to change the narrative. Instead, United capitulated in extraordinary fashion.
According to Opta, this was the first time they have lost at Old Trafford from two goals ahead in more than 50 years, since a defeat by the same score to Tottenham Hotspur in September 1976.
How Carrick’s tactical change made Manchester United worse
Jon Mackenzie
“2-0, and you f***** it up,” the travelling Brighton fans taunted United’s players.
But how could it happen? How did it happen?
A surrender of this magnitude on their turf is almost unprecedented, but the problems that Brighton exploited have been on show throughout the start to this season.
Lacey’s goal delighted the crowd, disguising his shot smartly and doing brilliantly to squeeze the ball through a gap between the defenders and past Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele. The 19-year-old tapping and kissing the club badge, before being congratulated by his team-mates, should have been the enduring image.
Shea Lacey celebrates his first goal for Manchester United’s senior team (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
The challenge was to learn the lesson of the past two league games and strike again, hard, while their opponents were on the back foot. Initially, they did so: when United stole the ball back on the edge of Brighton’s box two minutes later, leading to Mount’s goal, it appeared they were finally showing killer instinct.
But United failed to keep up the intensity and allowed Brighton to grow into the game.
After a Marcus Rashford free kick in the 12th minute, United had no further shots in the first half. After going 2-0 down, Brighton took six shots before Charalampos Kostoulas finally made one count in first-half stoppage time, with United unlocked by a simple crossfield ball in behind. Malick Yalcouye could already have scored when he burst into space behind United’s back line earlier, and Pascal Gross also spurned a good chance.
The warning signs were glaring but the United defence only grew more sloppy and disjointed in the second half.
United were harried into a rough clearance while trying to play out from the back and Luka Vuskovic beat Benjamin Sesko to a header that cleaved straight through to Gross, in far too much space between centre-backs Ayden Heaven and Leny Yoro, on the edge of United’s box. Gross wrong-footed Yoro as he scrambled to recover and slotted into the bottom corner.
Brighton cut through United’s lines with equal ease to score the winning goal, a rapid attack in which half the team was bypassed in a handful of slick passes. Seconds after an initial ball out from the back, Noussair Mazraoui was scrambling to chase Kostoulas into his own box, only for the forward to deflect a cutback to Maxim De Cuyper for a simple finish. Neither Diogo Dalot nor Yoro were marking De Cuyper effectively.
It was defensively brittle, sloppy and chaotic, and there never appeared much hope of United recovering the situation after De Cuyper gave Brighton the lead in the 69th minute. The moment that carried the most hope came when substitutes Kobbie Mainoo and Bruno Fernandes combined to set Rashford sprinting through on goal — but Steele successfully closed down the angle.
The players felt Old Trafford’s wrath for their individual errors and lack of solutions. In the closing stages, every misplaced pass and turnover in midfield was met with roars of frustration.
Late on, as United looked to break forward, Joshua Zirkzee stood on the ball in his own half and looked up to see four Brighton shirts around him and no passing options. It was a snapshot of United’s impotence.
“The feeling at the start to the feeling at the end couldn’t have been further apart,” Carrick said afterwards. “I take responsibility. We can’t put ourselves in that position after being ahead in the game, and the game finishing like it did.”
United failed to keep up the intensity and allowed Brighton to grow into the game (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Regardless of how they perform against Fulham on Sunday, this defeat will be dissected over a long international break.
Carrick is right to take some responsibility: the fact it took until the 66th minute to introduce Mainoo to help bring United some control can be questioned, as can the fact that all four defenders who performed so erratically played the full game. But the players must also shoulder blame for a host of errors.
Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler referred to the importance of his side “doing the basic things right”. United failed on that count.
By the time the final whistle blew, the high of Lacey’s goal felt a distant memory. Carrick did make sure to praise the teenager in his post-match remarks: “(It’s) such a great moment for him, for his family, his friends, the whole academy. But it feels like it was a long time ago.”
Rather than celebrating the breakout moment of a young talent, the home crowd was bitterly disappointed at full time. There were loud boos and while some supporters did applaud the players as they made their way around the pitch, others chanted insults about the performance as they made their way down the tunnel. It was a reminder of how volatile the fanbase can be and how intensely that negative emotion can manifest.
Carrick referred to the speed at which negativity seems to have gathered momentum in the narrative around United. “If you go from the Everton last-minute goal to the City goal to then… it creates a bit of a feeling.
“It’s happened over a period of a couple of weeks, maybe two or three weeks, where there’s a lot of frustration and disappointment around,” he added. “And we need to flip that and start winning games again.”
This was a golden opportunity for United to lift spirits and reclaim the narrative. Instead, the mood is perhaps the lowest it has been under Carrick.
