Maybe the craziest thing I ever wrote and something I could never imagine months ago, but today seems realistic to me: we missed Martial.
The big difference between the preseason game and today was that we didn't have a focal point of attack today. Missing Martial who surprised most of us and had a very positive preseason did Brighton a favor as they could easily go high up the pitch with us having the nonexistent focus of our attacks ( sorry Eriksen ). Martial movements, dropping deep, and linking up helped the whole squad to find more space and options, and I think that is not a coincidence that without him Sancho and Rashford had a tough time finding themselves in the game.
And putting Eriksen between their 3 center backs was not the greatest idea but it also shows how in absence of Martial, who we all think his career here was over, we badly need a real striker. Ronaldo is the greatest goal scorer ever, but his general play is not good enough and it will never be again, unfortunately. He will always score goals everywhere he plays, but ages don't go backward and he could be a luxury player to have in an already well-oiled machine team that we are far from currently.
Also, Dalot was key in our build-up and progressing the ball in some preseason games, and today very high and narrow 3-4-3 completely cut him out of the game and his rule and positioning in build-up became also nonexistent. Not saying that Dalot is a world beater but he is not as sh*** as most posters trying to make him look, he is a decent option.
Players who are real sh*** are Fred and more noticeable McTominay. We are a football club, not a charity to be ok with having a guy with a big white smile and a nice lad from the academy who speaks well in front of a camera in the most important positions on the pitch. You might win a game with those two, but you'll never get control of the ball during the match and control of the ball is what ETH is about. So, having said that I'm disappointed with ETH for not giving Garner an opportunity or introducing VDB earlier.
What hurts me more than the actual result is that summer is almost over, preseason is over and we are starting the opening game with McFred again. I'm sure that ETH is not happy with that either and that is why I'm surprised he didn't use Garner. Some posters a few seasons ago stated that McTominay is captain material..........captain of a football team should have one important quality to be so, more important than behaving well and apologizing in front of the media, and that is actual football ability.
Fair play to Brighton and Potter, they did extremely well despite selling Bissouma and Cucurella who were one of the best players in the squad.
All in all, not overreacting, I just don't know how to do it a shorter way. Having seen us before having a dream start of a season (against Chelsea and Leeds) and then having to wait for the campaign to end in pain, maybe a loss is not a bad start at all.