Manchester United were punched in the stomach by Brighton & Hove Albion’s 95th-minute winner in the Premier League on Saturday lunchtime, and yet it was an all too familiar feeling.

United initially went behind when Danny Welbeck, now 33 years of age, scored against his former club for the fifth time in his career. But Amad Diallo equalised and it looked like Alejandro Garnacho had put Erik ten Hag’s team ahead, only for an offside Joshua Zirkzee to get a touch on the ball.

A draw might still have been considered an acceptable result against a strong Brighton clearly buoyed by new manager Fabian Hurzeler. But Pedro’s stoppage time header – the Brazilian somehow able to get himself into acres of space at the far post – was sickening.

Stats after the game revealed it to be a sixth Premier League game that United have lost in stoppage time since the start of the 2022/23 season. That is a competition high over that period of time, with no other club beaten so many times at the death in the last two years.

In the first 30 years of the Premier League, 1992 to 2022, United lost just twice in stoppage time.

More generally, it only added to the notion that Brighton are United’s bogey side.

The Seagulls have won five of the last six Premier League meetings between the clubs. Even before this current run of games, Brighton won successive league games against Jose Mourinho’s United in May and August 2018, spanning two seasons.

It means Brighton have actually won seven of the 15 Premier League games against United, once winning 4-0 in an encounter when Ralf Rangnick was in interim charge of the Red Devils in May 2022. At 47%, it is a higher proportion of games lost against a single opponent than any other United have faced in the Premier League over the past 32 years.

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