DEJECTED Erik ten Hag’s afternoon went from bad to worse – when a SEAGULL was spotted clapping behind him after the late winner.
The Dutchman could not believe his luck as Brighton snatched all three points at the Amex.
Joao Pedro headed home in the 95th minute – after Joshua Zirkzee was desperately unfortunate to be caught offside on the goal line to rule out Alejandro Garnacho’s goal.
And after being pooped on by the Seagulls, United fans could not help but see the irony of a punter wearing a costume of the coastal bird.
The home supporter was picked up by the TNT Sports cameras in the seagull head mask right by the away dugout as Brighton celebrated the Pedro goal.
One fan said: “A very powerful image, Manchester United manager looking rather upset on the sidelines as a Brighton supporter wearing a huge seagull mask casually claps on.”
Another joked: “Imagine wearing a seagull mask and still only being the second silliest person in this picture…”
A third added: “The seagull has just made me do a wheeze laugh.”
A Red Devils fan admitted: “I’m really upset Man Utd lost BUT that guy with the seagull mask cheered me up.”
And a final user joked: “Seagulls getting bigger in Brighton.”
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The Seagulls will be partying on the beach tonight following the victory over United to make it two wins from two under new boss Fabian Hurzeler.
Danny Welbeck scored his 100th club career goal to open the scoring before Amad Diallo equalised with a deflected strike.
Garnacho thought he had turned the game on its head when he tapped in Bruno Fernandes’ pass.
However, Zirkzee had already slid in and was therefore unable to get out of the way in time as the ball bounced into the unguarded net off his knee on the line.
That saw the goal chalked off by VAR – before Pedro had the final word late on when he was given the freedom of the south coast.
Ten Hag fumed: “We concede two soft goals where we should act better as a team. You can’t drop points. It is so unnecessary if you protect the goal like we do and then drop points.
“It is very disappointing. We conceded two unnecessary goals – very avoidable.
“There were some very good parts in the game. We had a lot of control in possession and created some chances, showed resilience and came back and scored what we thought was the winning goal.
“We didn’t stop the cross. There were more than one mistake on that occasion and that had a big impact on the score.”
“[The disallowed goal] is such bad luck that the ball was on the line and it was touched by Zirkzee so that’s a pity.”
