Ten Hag would have liked to have made his debut in the Premier League with a victory. “We made mistakes that we should not make,” he told several media. “But we make them anyway. We must continue to work hard and learn from our mistakes. This defeat is quite hard, but fortunately I have also seen good things. Brighton has a team that has played in. They punished our mistakes.”
United started with Christian Eriksen as the striker. The Danish midfielder was preferred over Cristiano Ronaldo, who according to Ten Hag is insufficiently fit. “That’s how I communicated with him. I think he understands that. He has only been training for ten days and needs these matches to get fitter,” he said of the Portuguese who came in after 53 minutes. “You saw that we had two good chances with him on the field. Unfortunately Marcus Rashford failed to score.”
Ten Hag had Donny van de Beek and Tyrell Malacia fill in. He gave Lisandro Martínez a starting spot. The Argentinian, who came over from Ajax, received a yellow card. Pascal Gross scored twice in the first half for the visitors from Brighton. Brighton midfielder Alexis Mac Allister passed his own goalkeeper in the 68th minute.