Brighton vs Manchester United

BPL 2018-19 – Brighton vs Manchester United Match Preview

Jose’s United are back in action and this time they take on Brighton away from home which is expected to be a tough match for United. Man Utd beat Leicester in their opening game in an unconvincing fashion but those 3 points should give them momentum coming into this game while Brighton had a disappointing start and will look at a bounce back. Brighton won this exact fixture at home last season 1-0 so Manchester United should take them very seriously.

Brighton

It was not a start that Brighton fans would’ve wanted to the Premier League as they were thoroughly dominated and beat by Watford 2-0. It was a game that Brighton could’ve definitely had won had they shown up but unfortunately it wasn’t the case. There’s nothing much to really say about that game because Brighton surrendered the possession, most chances went Watford’s way and yeah that pretty much sums up their start to the season. Brighton now face Manchester United and they must absolutely up their game if they want to get something out of it. Maybe playing at home will make that difference as last season Brighton heavily relied on home form, they had the worst away record but still stayed up because they play really well at home so maybe that is the reason to Brighton’s poor opening match of the season, they played away. Now back home their fans will be hoping they can beat Manchester United like they did last season. It truly would be something if they could repeat that feat as tough as it may be. Losing this game would put pressure on Brighton as it would make 2 losses out of two and you don’t want to start the season like that.

Looking at team news and setup now. Brighton are still missing Izquiredo, Steele, Andone and their captain Bruno due to injuries. It’s definitely a big blow to not have their captain ready. We can expect Brighton to set up defensively and try to hit Manchester United with counter attacks and direct plays like long balls and set pieces. Brighton are definitely a dangerous side when it comes to those long balls and they may very well cause problems for United who have a suspect defence. We could see the new signing Jahanbakhsh make his first start too since Brighton weren’t doing much going forward in the previous game and he could absolutely make an impact, there’s a reason they paid the money for a man who scored 21 goals and got 12 assists in the Dutch Eredivisie and that’s for him to help improve their attacking threat. Other than that we will probably see a very similar lineup to the one that faced Watford.

Manchester United

Well it was not convincing but Manchester United made a winning start against a decent Leicester side winning 2-1. It was a typical Mourinho team display, they got an early goal and then surrendered possession and chances. Man Utd eventually found the second goal and Leicester responded right at the death to take the clean sheet away from de Gea. It was a professional job done by Man Utd to win the opening game. Defensively, they looked okay. Darmian was awful but apart from that Bailly, Lindelof and Luke Shaw put in good shift, the latter even got himself a goal. Luke Shaw is definitely a player to look out for this season because the injury riddled man is looking to have a bounce back year and on his contract year he could absolutely blossom and the opening game has shown glimpses of what Luke Shaw can do. The new signing Fred put in a really good shift, youngster Pereira also impressed and star man Pogba played really well. Pogba had some interesting comments during the week and many wonder if he is going to really stay at United before the transfer window shuts. Alexis was another talking point for negative reasons, he was god awful against Leicester giving the ball away but in the end United did come out as winners and that’s all that matters.

Looking at team news, we will most likely see Lukaku back in the starting lineup, the Belgian striker played 25+ minutes last week and had a really good chance to score but Schmeichel saved it. After another week of training he should surely be fit enough to start for United now. Jesse Lingard has returned to squad and Jose Mourinho said that he will be back in contention for the Brighton game, most likely going to come off the bench as impact sub as he hasn’t trained that much yet. Man Utd were also boosted by the news that Herrera has travelled up with the squad so he may displace youngster Pereira from the starting lineup, although Pereira’s performance last week is definitely worthy of keeping him in the lineup so it’s a dilemma for Jose. Antonio Valencia and Nemanja Matic are still not match ready. Matic will definitely be out, Valencia is highly likely to be out so Darmian will occupy that RB position again and he must improve on his last week’s effort and of course as mentioned in Matic’s absence we’ll either see Herrera or Pereira start alongside Pogba and Fred. It’s hard to say whether we can expect United to go all out attack because Jose doesn’t really tend to do that. They may gradually work themselves into the game and allow Brighton to have more possession and many would expect. It’s going to be a tough test and United must be up for it because it’s very possible to drop points at the Amex stadium as a visiting team as United learnt just 3 months ago themselves.

What to Expect

Well, we’re going to tell you guys what not to expect first and that is goals. It could be very likely that we may see a narrow 1-0 win by either side or even a 0-0 draw. In terms of over/unders (2.5 goals) last season, United were 11th  with 19O 19U, Brighton were 20th with 13o 25u which shows that these teams don’t tend to have high scoring games and even the 3 games that these teams played against each other last season including FA Cup were low scoring ending 1-0 2-0 and 1-0. Brighton are very tough defensively at home, United are one of those big teams that tend to settle for 0-1/0-2 wins because that’s how Jose’s teams are built, they take the lead and then grind to keep it. In terms of who do we think we win, we’ll give Manchester United that edge since Brighton were very poor to start the season against a team that’s similar to their level and it’s hard to expect for them to turn it all around against Manchester United. United should be riding a bit more of a high than they did coming into the game last week with those 3 points to begin the season and they should come here and leave with all 3 points too. Our prediction is 0-2 Man Utd win with goals from Lukaku and Pogba. Manchester United to win at 1.83 seems like a good value bet.

Match Odds (TonyBet)

Brighton Win – 5.25

Draw – 3.50

Manchester United Win – 1.83

KICK OFF – 19th August 2018 – 4pm UK Time