Manchester United optimism quickly snuffed out by return of old failings

A bright sun, a blue sky, the temperature climbing beyond 20C. The trams packed well over three hours before kick-off, the megastore rammed. The stewards and security men disconcertingly chirpy. The face of the new manager glaring from the scarves stretched out on the stalls on Matt Busby Way. A distinct buzz in the air. Perhaps even, if you really looked for it, a sense of optimism. And then they kicked off.

There have been plenty of dispiriting afternoons for Manchester United in recent years but few quite so dispiriting as this. The feeling was perhaps that Brighton, having sold Yves Bissouma and Marc Cucurella, would not be quite what they had been last season. The hope for home fans that Erik ten Hag’s hard-line approach would have transformed them. But Brighton outplayed United for long periods and might, in truth, have won more comfortably, particularly had Lisandro Martínez been penalised for what seemed an obvious barge in the box on Danny Welbeck. All the familiar late United surge achieved was to reduce the margin of defeat to 2-1. New dawn? Same old United.

Even Avram Glazer, enthused by the prospect of a new start, turned up, sitting in the directors’ box with the fixed stare and vacant smile characteristic of extremely wealthy men pretending to understand the events being played out in front of them. To his left, Alex Ferguson glowered down with the barely repressed frustration that has been his habitual mode for the nine years since he retired.

The injured Anthony Martial had arrived a few minutes before Glazer to general beaming and fist-bumps, while a row in front Gareth Southgate wore a quizzical air, watching one of his England leaders, Harry Maguire, operating unusually as the right-sided central