MANCHESTER: Eric ten Hag’s reign at Manchester United began in the worst possible way. All the old weaknesses of United last season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick were on display in their 2-1 home defeat by Brighton.

Graham Potter’s well-organised club won at Old Trafford for the first time in their history to send United fans streaming out of the ground long before the final whistle. Whatever new manager Ten Hag taught his players on their pre-season hike through Asia and Australia was forgotten.

Most embarrassing for toothless United was the sight of old boy Danny Welbeck tormenting Harry Maguire & Co throughout the 90 minutes before the man of the match was substituted in stoppage time.

Ten Hag and said this would be a new season and new story but this was the same old story. United were poor and disorganised in the first half and finally came to live after the interval. United fans, generously, applauded Ten Hag as he left the pitch while saving their chorus for his players.

Pascal Gross scored two superb first-half goals after 30 and 39 minutes with United pulling one back with an own goal from Alexis Mac Allisteer in the 69th minute. By that time Ten Hag has brought on Cristiano Ronaldo but all to no avail. The depth of United’s difficulties was demonstrated by their need to resort in desperation to Ronaldo’s goalscoring talents.

United’s failings off the pitch in support of Ten Hag have included the failure to resolve the departure of Ronaldo and the transfer saga surrounding Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong. So, while Ten Hag and his players slunk away so Brighton’s players and manager Potter enjoyed a joyous parade of honour in front of their own fans.

The goals from Gross meant Ten Hag became the first United manager to lose his Premier season opener since Louis van Gaal in 2014.

Gross, who joined Brighton from FC Ingolstadt in 2013, has scored the winning goal three times against United in the league for Brighton – in May 2018, August 2018 and yesterday. The only player with more winning goals against United in Premier history is Danny Murphy (ex-Liverpool and Fulham).

United captain Maguire said: “We went into the game positive, we had a good pre-season then made the worst possible start. It was a nightmare to be 2:0 down at half-time. Overall we didn’t do enough. We had a lot of pressure but we need to be more creative.

“It’s great to have Lisandro Martinez here but we’ve not played much together and in the first half we weren’t on the same wavelength. Centre-back partnerships are built over time and we will get a lot better.”

Ten Hag said: “We saw bad things and good things. We started well then we were punished for mistakes and you cannot alow that. We have to work to get those mistakes out of our game because this cannot happen at top level. We want to give the fans somethng different but we have to work hard and it didn’t happen today. I think there was a good spirit in the team so there’s hope for the future.”

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