Manchester United 1-3 Brighton: ‘Playing with courage’ key for Brighton say Roberto De Zerbi

Brighton manager Roberto de Zerbi says his players’ “courage” was the key to their latest triumph over Manchester United.

It came despite a huge disparity in income between the two clubs.

Brighton’s starting line-up cost less than £20m in total, while United spent more than £300m on theirs.

Few would have been able to tell the difference on this evidence as former United striker Danny Welbeck’s first-half opener was followed up by second-half efforts from Pascal Gross and Joao Pedro.

“I don’t know the problems of Man Utd but I can explain my team,” he said.

“We are used to working in our style.

“We are playing with courage. We defended at Old Trafford man-to-man all the time. We kept the ball in every situation. We played the centre-back with the full-back and two in central midfield. We are building our season in this way.”

Brighton are now fourth in the Premier League and make their European bow against Greek side AEK Athens in the Europa League on Thursday.

“Football is nice because the small team can win in every moment,” he said.

“But while I think Brighton is not becoming a big, big team, [winning here] is not a surprise – the quality of the Brighton players is very high.”