United travel to Brighton and Hove Albion for their second fixture of the new season tomorrow and the Falmer Stadium is not a ground where we’ve played too well at in the last 3 seasons.
Yes, we outplayed Brighton at the end of June in front of an empty stadium during lockdown, but the two previous occasions down there, both in 2018 under Mourinho, were not good performances at all.
Kick off tomorrow afternoon is at 12.30pm and the game is live on BT Sport and it’s already become a must win game after our awful show last weekend at home to Palace. If a defeat happens tomorrow it will be an awful start to the season, however as much I want the win, I want a performance as well.
If we play well, create plenty of chances and come unstuck down there you can just about handle it. However, if we get beat and play terribly with no effort and intensity again, then it becomes a problem.
I’m all for giving them time (even though we don’t have it) but something has to give tomorrow, a win, a performance, but preferably both. I’ve travelled up, down and around this country watching United for many years and have learned to accept defeats when they come. Then you just get on with enjoying yourself and the journey home with mates.
Losing and getting beat though, does tend to hurt for just that little bit longer when you’ve seen no effort or commitment from a lack lustre team performance. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy me beers on the way home and have a laugh with my mates, but you get my point.
Take 2018 and our first trip to Brighton away in the league in 35 years, a shocking performance, yes Brighton were battling for survival but they’d not won in seven games before we turned up. You under perform against anyone is this league and you’ll get punished. And we did.
I didn’t actually see that game live, the only one that season, I’d booked a camping trip away with family and friends with every intention of finding a pub on the Saturday or Sunday to watch it. Then it got moved to a Friday night, so I had to listen to it on the radio whilst putting our tent up. Glutton for punishment, I still watched the game back about a week later to see how poor we actually were.
Three and a half months later, the start of a new season and United were back at Falmer Stadium for another visit. Surely we could perform a lot better this time, nope. I was there for it too, having managed to get a ticket for the game through the ballot. The 3-2 scoreline doesn’t tell the full story after a shocking first half performance and some truly awful defending. Still, being United and I was confident we could get back into the game in the second-half but some of the players heads were already down and that is when you know you’re beaten.
Hopefully tomorrow will not be one of those days, although Brighton have just won three games on the spin without conceding a single goal. Our performance can’t be any worse than last Saturday though I’m hoping Donny van de Beek starts, along with Greenwood and we get the victory. Bailly too may well start in place of Lindelof, who I really like and I know he tries his best, but unfortunately his best is not good enough after too many individual errors.
Anyway, enjoy the game, our match day podcast will be up a few hours after the game for you to all to have a listen to. Then I’ll do another pre-match preview at the start of next week of our next game at err, Brighton again in the Carabao Cup.
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