Man Utd vs. Brighton Betting Tips: Goals on the cards at Old Trafford

The first Super Sunday of the season is kicked off by, what looks to be, a thoroughly entertaining mid-table clash at Old Trafford - as Brighton & Hove Albion head north to face Manchester United. 

Of course mid-table is probably a little harsh to describe one of these teams, as Graham Potter’s side will look to push on from a 9th place finish last season and qualify for European football for the first time in their history. The Seagulls finished the season exceptionally strongly, picking up five wins and two draws from their final eight games to secure their best top flight finish ever.

United actually finished seven points clear of their opening day rivals, but secured their worst Premier League finish of all-time, and will have been much more underwhelmed by their lacklustre season. A season that began with the re-signing of Cristiano Ronaldo ended with the resigning of Ralf Rangnick, seeing Ole Gunnar Solksjaer sacked somewhere in the middle. The Portuguese star’s move was drummed up to be the ‘final jigsaw piece for Ole’s side that would propel the Red Devils from 2nd in 2020/21 to knocking Manchester City off their perch within a year.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

With Solksjaer sacked four months into a four-year contract extension and Rangnick leaving for Austria, United were in need of an overhaul. The process has been entrusted to exciting coach Erik Ten Hag, who won the Eredivisie three consecutive times with Ajax - as well as leading the Godenzonen to the Champions League semi-finals in 2019. To date he’s only made three signings but his Dutch flavour is clear for all to see, with Tyrell Malacia and Lisandro Martinez joining from Feyenoord and Ajax respectively for a combined £65m.

They’ve also made the shrewd pick up of free agent Christian Eriksen, whose Eredivisie DNA dates back to 2009, and very publicly pursued Barcelona’s Frenkie De Jong (who was part of Ten Hag’s Ajax side in 2019).

However as some things change, the more they stay the same. Despite those additions, and the changes in backroom personnel, it somehow looks likely that Manchester United will start a side that featured in most of their games last season. It’s a side that are no stranger to opening day goalfests though, of which United have had several of in recent seasons.

In their six openers since the beginning of the 2016/17 season Manchester United’s games have seen an outrageous 25 goals - with all six fixtures seeing at least three, at an average of 4.2 per game. Brighton, meanwhile, have seen at least three goals in each of their last three opening matches - including two away victories. These two also have a fantastic head-to-head record for goals, with eight of their last nine meetings surpassing this mark - including their most recent meeting, in which United succumbed to a 4-0 drubbing on the seaside back in May.

Marc Cucurella finally joined Chelsea on Friday, having very publicly flirted with a host of Champions League sides over the summer and his departure should open up an opportunity for Leandro Trossard to reprise the role he deputised in so successfully towards the back end of last season.

In the midst of Brighton’s defensive crisis from April onwards, the Belgian midfielder slotted in at left-wing back and excelled himself in the role - with only Heung-min Son and Kevin De Bruyne contributing more goals per game during that period. In six appearances in the position; he bagged four times, added two assists and attempted nine shots on goal - with five hitting the target.

One of those goals and both of the assists came the last time these two sides met, as Trossard ran riot at the AMEX Stadium. His rout in 11 second half minutes left the Red Devils reeling; putting it on a plate for Cucurella then feeding one into Gross to dance through the defence, before bundling home Danny Welbeck’s cross to make it 4-0.