Brighton & Hove Albion ruined the party at Old Trafford when they handed Erik ten Hag his first official defeat as Manchester United manager in their Premier League season opener on Sunday. The Seagulls outwitted the Red Devils, making them look silly and starting their own season on a high note.
Before the game itself, the odds were firmly stacked around Brighton. Having just lost Marc Cucurella to Chelsea in the week prior to the opener, as well as Yves Bissouma earlier in the summer, doubts started creeping in about how Graham Potter’s side can sustain themselves.
Among the fans to take Brighton lightly and make fun of them on social media was, predictably, Manchester United’s fanbase. For many United fans, their team’s decent pre-season outing gave them the confidence to believe that they would just steamroll through the Seagulls and start the new era in flying colours.
One famous Manchester United YouTuber and Talksport presenter, Mark Goldbridge, was especially positive of the Red Devils’ chances of swatting aside Brighton. Before the game, he cited Cucurella’s departure to be weakening the Brighton squad and making United’s job easier.
He tweeted: “One positive. Cucarella leaving Brighton this week makes our job easier on Sunday.” The exact opposite happened. Brighton absolutely tormented Ten Hag’s side, running them ragged and coming up with a win that could’ve been even bigger had certain decisions gone their way.
Goldbridge’s cocky tweet came back to haunt him and his side and he also got a reply from a surprising source as Brighton’s own Twitter account’s admin decided to poke some fun at the United fan’s horrible tweet, replying in the comments: “Still haven’t deleted this… you’re slower than a snail’s funeral.”
This was basically the admin using a tweaked version of some of the terms Goldbridge himself uses in his live streams to describe certain things or players.
Goldbridge and millions of United fans were obviously made to eat humble pie after losing to Brighton. All the ‘superfan’ could do to reply to the savage tweet made by the Seagulls’ Twitter admin was a stone-wall picture of himself.