MANCHESTER, England — The most shocking aspect of Manchester United’s dismal 3-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday is that there was little surprise at all.
Anyone who watched the first 80 minutes against Southampton — the Premier League’s worst team — on Thursday will have worried about what Brighton might do at Old Trafford. And in that sense, the Seagulls leaving Manchester as comfortable winners was entirely predictable.
United managed to rally themselves against Southampton to eventually win 3-1. There was no repeat against Brighton and, if anything, the visitors could have won more handsomely. They scored three, had another ruled out through VAR and squandered chances at the end.
Manager Ruben Amorim has been keen to take responsibility for what is an awful run of results onto his own shoulders, but this is not a new phenomenon. Brighton have won their past three games at Old Trafford under three different managers. The problem isn’t Amorim, it’s the situation he has inherited.
“We have to acknowledge the moment and not go around the problem,” Amorim said afterward. “Everybody here is underperforming; no matter what the circumstances, we are underperforming and have to accept that.
“It’s unacceptable to lose so many games. For any Premier League club, but imagine Manchester United. So it’s a really hard moment, but we have to continue, there is no other way. We need to suffer and continue.”
The most damning thing for United is that Brighton didn’t even need to be that good. They arrived at Old Trafford having won just one of their past nine league games. But instead of looking out of form and out of sorts, they sauntered to victory.
The last time Brighton scored three in a league game was in October against Tottenham Hotspur’s notoriously leaky defence.
“We are not surprised,” Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler said. “We haven’t been getting the results that maybe we deserved.
“We had a very mature performance. We controlled the game and created chances. The guys looked quite confident on the pitch.”
Brighton needed just three shots on target to score three goals. It helped that goalkeeper André Onana — terrific against Southampton — made a howler to gift the visitors their third goal. Yasin Ayari hit a hopeful cross towards nobody in particular and instead of a routine collection, Onana came sliding out and fumbled the ball into Georginio Rutter’s path to score into an empty net. It was an embarrassment which summed up United’s afternoon.
United had just one shot on target, which came from Bruno Fernandes’ first-half penalty. For the first time in nine years they failed to have a shot on target from open play in a league match at Old Trafford.
It was another one of those days when researchers were forced to open the record books to find out the last time United were this bad. Defeat to Brighton is their sixth home Premier League defeat of the season — their most from their opening 12 home matches of a league season for 130 years. The last time it happened — in the 1893-94 season — they weren’t even called United (they were named Newton Heath) and played at the Bank Street stadium.
Amorim has now lost seven of his first 15 games in charge, the first United manager to do so since Jimmy Murphy, who briefly took over after the Munich air disaster in 1958.
“We have to understand we are breaking all the bad records,” Amorim said. “The opponents are better than us in many details. It’s a hard moment, you have to acknowledge that we are in a very difficult situation.”
Since Amorim took over from Erik ten Hag in November, his team have taken 11 points from 11 league games. They sit 13th in the table, just five places and 10 points above the relegation places. The danger is that things could get worse before they get better.
United’s next five league games are all against teams 10th in the table or lower. If Amorim’s team cedes points to the likes of Fulham, Crystal Palace, Tottenham, Everton and Ipswich Town over the next month, they will be a lot closer to the drop zone than they are now.
It’s predominantly those teams that United struggle against. Under Amorim, United have beaten Manchester City and Arsenal and drawn with Liverpool, but have lost comfortably to Nottingham Forest, AFC Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Before the latest harrowing defeat against Brighton, United paid tribute to Denis Law. Their legendary former striker, who died aged 84 on Friday, is celebrated with a statue outside Old Trafford and was part of one of the club’s greatest ever teams in the 1960s.
What is happening now couldn’t be further removed from the success enjoyed by Law and his teammates, something laid out plainly by Amorim in his post-match news conference.
“We are the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United,” he said. “In [the past] 10 games in Premier League, we won three. We need to survive now.”
And that’s where United find themselves. Focusing on survival after doing what everyone expected and losing again.
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