Manchester United cruise past Brighton and Hove Albion, into the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, in the Amex Arena. The Red Devils were dominant throughout the game and won the game by a scoreline of 3-0, with some great individual performances. Scott McTominay, Juan Mata and Paul Pogba scored the goals whereas Dean Henderson, Eric Bailly and Van de Beek impressed again, as they fight for their place for the league team.
Solskjaer put out a strong team again but had a few surprise entries in the starting XI. No one expected Dalot and Dan James to be starting ahead of the likes of Fosu-Mensah and Lingard respectively. But both Dalot and James failed to impress and looked lost and below par for most of the game.
The game started slowly as both the sides were cautious in possession but did very little to force the goalkeepers into saves. Fred, Mata and Van de Beek pulled the strings for United whereas McTominay, James and Ighalo struggled again. For the second match running, Ighalo failed to take his chance, as he messed up a shot wide of the goal after rounding the goalkeeper, from Mata’s pass.
United piled on the pressure as the first half progressed and in the final minute of the half finally got their goal. McTominay headed into an open net as Mata’s cross was pin-point accurate, giving United the lead before the half ended. The second half was better from both the sides as Brighton tried to push on to get the equalizer.
Brighton had a couple of great opportunities to score but Eric Bailly and Dean Henderson were constantly in their way. Bailly stopped a couple of counter-attacks with last-ditch challenges and Henderson came up with a point-blank range safe to keep United in the game. In the 70th minute, Solskjaer introduced Rashford and Pogba, which turned the game on its head, as Mata combined with Van de Beek to score United’s second.
From the onwards United had many chances as the quality of Pogba, Rashford, Van de Beek and Mata was on display. But the Red Devils scored only one more goal which came from a free-kick from Paul Pogba, who opened his account for the season. With some good performances and a clean-sheet, Solskjaer will be happy with the overall outcome of the game.
