On Saturday afternoon, Manchester United lost their opening game of the season against Brighton, and Gary Neville saved his worst criticism for one player.
The Seagulls defeated Erik ten Hag’s team 2-1, their first loss of the year. Amad cancelled off Danny Welbeck’s first-half goal, which had been scored by the former United forward.
However, Joao Pedro’s stoppage-time header sealed the win for Brighton, adding to the Red Devils’ woes after a challenging campaign last season. The team’s defensive abilities were once again under scrutiny.
Neville believes this result puts significant pressure on Ten Hag early in the season, particularly with an upcoming match against Liverpool. He singled out Casemiro for criticism, noting that the Brazilian had abandoned his post at the back before moving into midfield, leaving Pedro unmarked to score the decisive goal.
“Really depressing end to the game,” he told NBC Sports. “I thought a draw would’ve been half acceptable but to lose the game, it puts an awful lot of pressure, I think, on Erik ten Hag and on towards the game next week against Liverpool,” reports the Mirror.
Neville also talked about how United “wasted 45 minutes” in the first half due to their inability to establish a clear center forward; Joshua Zirkzee was only added in the second half.
He made the following observation: “I just witnessed the last goal come up to the gantry. The first goal in the second half was also poorly defensively. You must continue to defend when you clear a corner since you are defending the corner’s second phase. I believe that if you study Casemiro in particular—I’ve only seen the replay once—you can see that he appears to leave his position at the back post and rush back towards central midfield.
“However, it leaves that back zone with three Brighton players lined up in an acre of space. Lack of focus and concentration, which puts some strain on them.”
Ten Hag expressed his frank dissatisfaction with his team’s performance following the game, admitting that he had hoped for greater execution and characterizing the two goals let up against Brighton as “soft”.
“There were multiple errors. We need to discuss it,” he stated. “We shouldn’t have lost the game, but we were very close to winning it. We ought to perform better today. We ought to perform better in the Community Shield. These are two extremely flimsy goals. We ought to have performed better.
“I’ve watched both excellent and bad portions of the game; we ought to have had greater control over the game early in the second half. We ought to be more aggressive and clinical in both boxes.”
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