Football
Manchester United lose third straight meeting with Brighton at Old Trafford
Joe Lyons is a sports writer with years of experience on reputable sports and gambling websites. Joe has also been published by Nottingham Forest, working with the academy and senior teams to produce content on matchdays. He formerly covered the Premier League and EFL as an on-site reporter during the 2020/21 season for Prost International. He is an expert in a range of sports including soccer, basketball, horse racing and American football. Joe specialises in long form content alongside news, tips and betting. Joe has a keen eye for the sports betting industry in the USA which covers the NBA and NFL, tracking and analysing the market as it changes throughout the season.
Get to know Joe Lyons betterPublished19 Jan 2025
Watch the highlights as Manchester United were brought back down to earth by Brighton at Old Trafford.
In their first loss of the calendar year, the Red Devils were beaten for a third consecutive time by Brighton at the Theatre of Dreams in a majorly disappointing performance.
It didn’t take long for the visitors to stick their noses in front when Kaoru Mitoma’s blistering run in behind the defence set up Yankuba Minteh to tap home for his third goal of the season.
Carlos Baleba’s clumsy challenge on Joshua Zirkzee inside the penalty area after 20 minutes saw referee Peter Bankes point to the spot after much deliberation, to which Bruno Fernandes obliged and levelled the scores.
Joao Pedro thought he’d put Brighton back in front ten minutes into the second half before VAR intervened and ruled it out, but it wasn’t long before the Seagulls had re-taken the lead for real.
Minteh’s pinpoint delivery was met by Mitoma at the back post who had the beating of Noussair Mazraoui to make it 2-1 and 15 minutes later, Andre Onana gifted Brighton a third after failing to collect a simple cross.
The result leaves United in 13th on 26 points and Brighton in ninth on 34 points after 22 games each. As per the best football betting sites, United aren’t out of the relegation equation and they’re as short as 40/1 for the drop.
WATCH: Manchester United 1-3 Brighton Highlights
United lose sixth home league game of the season, most from opening 12 since the late 1800s
United suffered their sixth home defeat of the Premier League season, their most from their opening 12 home matches of a season since 1983-94 (7).
The football looks entirely more promising under Ruben Amorim than it did under Erik ten Hag’s control, but the results are yet to follow and this is going to be a slow process.
They’ve shown sparks of brilliance like in the Manchester derby win before Christmas and a fantastic 2-2 draw at Anfield earlier this month, but the consistency simply isn’t there yet.
United have won just one of their last eight games, including five defeats and two draws.