FIVE ASIDES Premier League: Brighton 1, United 0
Under Erik ten Hag United have got better at almost everything, but they have an Achilles heel. And it's a big one: they are hopeless at facing good teams away from home. It was bad luck that they lost this game to a last-gasp penalty (though they could hardly complain after doing much the same thing to Brighton 11 days earlier). But it wasn't bad luck that they hadn't scored. They have now visited all the rest of the top nine in the league, and the results tell a dismal story: played 8, won 0, drawn 1, lost 7, goals for 8, goals against 28, points 1. On the road, against the better sides, United are relegation fodder.
The rest of the time, to be fair, they are title contenders. Played 25, won 19, drawn 5, lost 1, goals for 41, goals against 12, points 62. So the good news is that if Ten Hag can spend his summer fixing the heel, they will stand taller next season. And there has been a slight improvement since they were outplayed at Newcastle. United have shown more gumption in the last two of these nine excursions - the draw at Spurs (that felt like a defeat) and now the defeat at Brighton (that felt like a draw).
Of the eight bad days on the road, this was the second least embarrassing (behind Arsenal). It was the first time United had lost 1-0 home or away since they faced Real Betis on the unreal day when the Queen died. There’s no disgrace in losing to a well-drilled team when you're missing both your regular centre-backs. Luke Shaw has barely put a foot wrong as Lisandro Martinez’s understudy, so we can't be too hard on him for choosing the wrong moment to put his hand up. But if Brighton’s shooting had been half as sharp as their passing, this would have been 4-0, just like last season. And if United’s shooting had been sharp, it would have been 4-2.
The two forward lines cancelled each other out, racing onto through balls and then omitting to do anything with them. United lost the battle because they lost the midfield. Even with Moises Caicedo exiled to right-back, Brighton’s midfield was a marvel of elegant latticework. United have one player who is better at that than all the rest, and they left him on the bench. Christian Eriksen may have been less precise than usual against Villa, but that was a reason to have a quiet word, not to drop him. Villa were blunted largely because United, with Bruno Fernandes on the right, had the extra midfielder. They sorely missed that here. Anthony Martial kept dropping deep to help out, but he's no Eriksen, and Casemiro was infected by his mate Fred’s habit of winning the ball only to give it away again.
Fred wasn't a bad selection, but somebody else was. Did anyone else groan when they saw that Ten Hag had brought back Antony, whose contribution to the game duly turned out to be a few tricks and a tantrum? When you're playing on the counter, you only need two forwards as long as they're fast and decisive. We know that from United’s home game against Liverpool in October 2019, when Dan James’s greatest hit - a curling cross in the Harry Kane league - sent Marcus Rashford clear. Antony has received one assist from Rashford this season, on his debut against Arsenal, and he has yet to return the compliment. In the league, his only assist was a crisp through pass for Diogo Dalot at Nottingham Forest. As a crosser, he's a useless tosser. Against Brighton, nearly all of United’s creativity came, as usual, from Rashford and Fernandes, who delivered eight shot-creating actions each, according to fbref.com, while nobody else managed more than three. It’s the same old story.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian. If you’re on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing. If you received this piece by email, please feel free to forward it to the nearest Red.