Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first goal of 2022 as Manchester United beat Brighton 2-0 at Old Trafford on Tuesday night. The result took the Red Devils into fourth place ahead of West Ham, who had drawn 2-2 with Leicester over the weekend.
Despite their poor past record at Old Trafford, Brighton didn’t go down without a fight, and actually had the better chances in the first half. One of them came from a bad pass from Fred, which ended in David de Gea having to make a good save to deny Jakub Moder. The Polish medio also had a fine header saved by De Gea and after the interval, also rattled the crossbar with a thunderous long-range effort.
Brighton were their own worst enemies though and two poor mistakes allowed United to take control of the fixture. The first was from Yves Bissouma, who was robbed in possession by Scott McTominay, and the move culminated in Ronaldo firing home from the edge of the box. The other saw Lewis Dunk red carded for denying Anthony Elanga a potential goal scoring opportunity.
United had plenty of chances to kill the game off- Ronaldo and Bruno both went close, but only managed to make it 2-0 in stoppage time after some quick thinking from Paul Pogba.
The Red Devils’ next game is against Leeds while Brighton will square off against Burnley.
