GROSS GETS BRIGHTON OVER LINE
NICE place to visit the beach, Brighton. A club in a pre-Wembley holiday mode, Manchester United. So perhaps this defeat was understandable, shambles that it was. A lethargic, lazy, mindnumbing shambles, made worse with almost every contribution of that mop-headed interloper in Marouane Fellaini and just about any other United player beyond yond David de Gea.
The goalkeeper was good, as he almost always is. Two of his firsthalf rstre saves in particular were brilliant, evidence again of why y he has just been rated United’s best player in four of the past five seasons and evidence of why this Brighton win was no fluke. It was deserved, from start to finish, taking in Pascal Gross’s goal on 57 minutes and most other r actions in between.
That’s Brighton safe now,, a quite wonderful achievementt by their manager Chris Hughton. .
Jose Mourinho, for his part, looked pretty ruffled by the whole sorry tale but he shouldn’t have been. He is the orchestrator of this strange era, in which United can simultaneously be capable of beating Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham and Arsenal across the competitions in the space of three months, but somehow have also lost away to all three sides promoted from the Championship last season.
That is bizarre. The fact they also find themselves held to ransom in a contract wrangle by a player as limited as Fellaini is just plain surreal, a sign of the times, despite all other progress. Go figure.
It is, of course, a season of advancement in almost all regards. And the FA Cup final offers a chance to make it quite something. But how odd they make it look.
Mourinho made six changes to the side who beat Arsenal on Sunday. Alexis Sanchez was taken out of the squad entirely due to what his manager termed an ‘injury’ without elaboration ahead of kickoff, while Romelu Lukaku needed further treatment on the ankle problem that forced him off last weekend.
Antonio Valencia, Victor Lindelof, Ander Herrera and Jesse Lingard also made way, with Fellaini given a start following his winning contribution to the Arsenal fixture.
Fellaini’s contract is up at the end of the season and a fair chunk of those with United interests wouldn’t wretch their way through too many tears if he went.
He is just that kind of player, not one given to anything especially aesthetic but cherished by Mourinho in ways that reveal a lot about what the manager holds dear.
It is hard to see how Fellaini can ingratiate himself to the fans when his comments this week appeared to boast about the strength of his negotiating position in the standoff. Not a great look, really.
In this game, he was typically rugged. He is a nuisance, a pain, useful with those impossibly stretchy limbs and yet about as useful as a split elastic band at other times. In the space of 30 minutes in the first half, Fellaini had a goal rightly disallowed for offside and also managed to present Gross with a decent chance with an entirely careless pass in midfield. There were also interceptions and blocks and no shortage of approving looks from Mourinho. Odd couple, that.
The other notable inclusions in the side were Matteo Darmian and Anthony Martial, for rare starts, and Marcus Rashford, too. The latter has perhaps been the biggest victim of Lukaku’s arrival. With just two previous starts in 2018, it has been a hard waiting game in a World Cup year.
Rashford is a real joy of a player and yet one who seemed here to be noticeably low on confidence. There was a moment late in the half when Lewis Dunk was caught in possession and Rashford closed on goal from the right. Martial was square and waiting and Paul Pogba was available for a cutback, but the indecision was painful to watch. Dunk was able to recover and with it United’s best chance of the first half was gone.
Not much to shout about, then. Far from it, beyond the interventions of De Gea. The save from Glenn Murray on 20 minutes was perhaps the best — a dive at full stretch, a finger tip.
He then tipped one over from Jose Izquierdo and smothered a shot from Gross with his feet.
The second half was a different tale. Pogba had the whiff of an opening at the onset — blown, of course — and Brighton got their lead soon a moment later.
Izquierdo did a decent chunk of the damage by beating Darmian at the second attempt down the left and De Gea could only divert his cross towards Gross. The initial header appeared to be cleared off the line by Marcos Rojo but the referee’s goal-line technology got the big call right. BRIGHTON (4-4-1-1): Ryan 6; Bruno 7, Duffy 6.5, Dunk 7, Bong 7; Knockaert 7, Stephens 7, Propper 7, Izquierdo 7 (March 87min); Gross 7.5 (Kayal 84); Murray 6.5 (Ulloa 90). Subs not used: Krul, Goldson, Schelotto, Locadia. Scorer: Gross 57. Booked: Gross, Murray.
Manager: Chris Hughton 7. MANCHESTER UNITED (4-4-3): DE GEA 7.5; Darmian 5.5 (Shaw 6, 68), Smalling 6, Rojo 6.5 (McTominay 76), Young 6; Fellaini 4 (Lingard 6, 68min) Matic 5, Pogba 5.5; Mata 5.5, Rashford 5, Martial 5. Subs not used: Romero, Lindelof, Bailly,
Herrera. Booked: None. Manager: Jose Mourinho 5. Referee: Craig Pawson 7.5.
Attendance: 30,611.