FIVE ASIDES Premier League: United 2, Brighton 0
A win! A clean sheet! A second goal! Even if it didn’t arrive till the 97th minute. It was worth the wait: a classic United counter-attack, choreographed by their two most creative figures. Paul Pogba took a quick free kick, when many people would have played for time. His simple forward pass released Bruno Fernandes, who had the legs to carry the ball for 60 yards and the composure to find the net after missing a sitter earlier. Pogba had come on for a classy cameo; Fernandes had bounced back from an anodyne start to produce six shot-making actions in the last 40 minutes.
United badly needed to kick the habit of only turning up in the first half. And they did – by only turning up in the second. For 45 minutes they had allowed Brighton to boss them around. United were flattered by the 0-0 on the scoreboard after having only 41pc of the possession, three of the 11 shots, and one of the three big chances. David de Gea, as so often, had kept them competitive with a glorious save from the best header of the night, fired in by Jakub Moder.
Cristiano Ronaldo is back in business, but he’s not quite back in form. He emerged from his drought with a memorable goal, a snap shot powered by six weeks of frustration. After that he was everywhere, sniffing a second, getting into good positions but putting his headers wide or over the bar. He’s still a comic-book hero whose superpower has gone missing, though that one goal will surely lead to a few more.
Ralf Rangnick deserved to escape from his binary hell because he managed the game better. He kept more firepower on the bench, in the form of Pogba and Marcus Rashford. And he made a shrewd change at half-time, not with the personnel but with the shape – telling the wingers, Jadon Sancho and Anthony Elanga, to go narrower. That decision played a part in two vital pressing operations: the one that led to Ronaldo’s goal, and the one three minutes later that led to Lewis Dunk’s dismissal.
After that double whammy, it should have been a breeze. But somehow United allowed Tariq Lamptey, who came on after an hour, to be the man of the rest of the match. Rangnick responded, replacing Sancho with Alex Telles – which was pragmatic, but also revealing. At home, against Brighton, leading 1-0 and facing ten men, did United really need two left-backs to deal with a 21-year-old wing-back? Far from being smothered, Lamptey gave both his minders the slip in the 90th minute and sent an immaculate cross onto the head of Danny Welbeck, who couldn’t keep the ball down. That’s how close United came to yet another 1-1. Fine margins, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer used to say.