'Problem with Man United' - Roberto De Zerbi gives interesting explanation for Brighton's recent dominance over Old Trafford club

Danny Welbeck scored his fifth goal in 14 games against his former club before Pascal Gross doubled the lead after the break – a quarter of his Brighton goals have been against the Red Devils (seven in 11 games against them).

Substitute Joao Pedro also got on the scoresheet at Old Trafford, as Albion extended their goal tally for the season to 15 – the highest in the league so far.

With a number of key players either on the bench – or missing from the squad entirely – Brighton’s starting XI cost just £17m. Rasmus Hojlund and Andre Onana, alone, could eventually cost up to £120m.

De Zerbi was asked to explain how Brighton turned up to Old Trafford with a stronger team in those circumstances – and won at the famous stadium for the second time in a row.

The Italian replied: “It’s too difficult this question because no, it is a good question, but the football is nice because the small team can win in every moment with a great team.

"But I think Brighton is becoming not big, big team. It is not a surprise the quality of the players of Brighton is very high.

"The organisation of the club, the possibility to manage two players per position. It's difficult but we are lucky our owner give us these players.

“I don't know the problem with Man United, I can explain my team. We are used to working in our style we are playing with courage because we defended in Old Trafford men to men all the time.”

De Zerbi said his team ‘kept the ball in every situation’ – whether it was the keeper, centre backs or the full backs.

He added: “We played with two midfielders. [Mahmoud] Dahoud is not a player strong in quantity. He’s a quality player.

“Pascal [Gross] is another with a big quality and we are building our our season in this way.”

Despite missing some big names, De Zerbi – who made six changes – said he still had some ‘other great players’ to rely on, adding: “I think, we play a great game, especially in the second half.

"But after the first 15 minutes in the first half, we suffered a lot, the pressure, the different tactical disposition of Man United. But after that, I think we played a great game.

“I'm lucky because we have a great squad. We, we can change the two players per every position on the pitch. We were without [Pervis] Estupinan, Solly [March] and nothing changes in terms of characteristic of the players.”

The Seagulls had chances to make the scoreline even more emphatic, with Onana making a couple of fine stops – particularly from Ansu Fati.

De Zerbi said: “In the second half I think we, we kept the ball in a very good way but we could attack sometimes with more energy.

“We didn't want to concede the counter attack and that was the focus. But we could score more goals especially in the last 25 minutes.”