Manchester United captain Harry Maguire has admitted that his side have made the "worst possible start" to the 2022-23 Premier League campaign.
Erik ten Hag was bidding to get his reign as head coach off to a winning start on Sunday afternoon, when Brighton & Hove Albion made the trip to Old Trafford.
However, the Red Devils suffered a 2-1 defeat to Graham Potter's side, with Pascal Gross's first-half double proving enough to secure all the points, with the hosts only netting a consolidation in the second half.
Maguire has said that the performance was "not good enough" and has urged his side to bounce back in their next Premier League fixture away to Brentford this Saturday.
"The result is disappointing. It's the worst possible start, to be 2-0 down at half-time at Old Trafford," Maguire told Sky Sports News. "It's not good enough and we huffed and puffed to get one back and we had chances to equalise. It's a bad start for us.
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"I think we actually started the game pretty well. We started on the front foot against a team who try to control the game and we conceded the first goal, which knocked us back really bad.
"We stopped playing from then and they got a lot of control in the game, so we need to look at not letting that first goal knock us back as much as it did.
"We have to be better on the ball. We gave the ball away far too much after the first goal and we gave them encouragement to come forward and attack us."
Maguire was joined at the heart of the Man United defence by new signing Lisandro Martinez on Sunday, with Raphael Varane, who has had his fitness problems during pre-season, on the bench.
Christian Eriksen also made his debut for the club, starting as the false nine, with Anthony Martial out with a hamstring injury, and Cristiano Ronaldo not deemed fit enough to be in the side for the first whistle.
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Diogo Dalot, who started at right-back against Brighton, also admitted that his side were not good enough in their opening-weekend defeat.
"I think everyone felt that it was a disappointing result. We started really bad the first 45 minutes. Second half we got a little bit better but still not enough to win a game like this," Dalot told MUTV.
"We knew that it was going to be tough. [I'm] disappointed but we need to keep our heads up and start working for the next game.
"I think we could stop a little bit more the counter-attacks. We let them play freely a couple of times and they [played] in behind.
"We could stop those counter-attacks with a little bit more aggression, but [as] I said, we did better in the second half. We kept more of the ball, we had some chances, but we need to analyse what we didn't do right and try to improve for the next game."
Man United will play another three Premier League matches before the end of the month, taking on Brentford, Liverpool and Southampton before travelling to Leicester City at the start of September.
Matt Law
