De Gea's night of triumph and torment
David De Gea admits he was urging his outfield Manchester United team-mates to be ruthless and end the tortuous late tension at Old Trafford against Brighton.
Cristiano Ronaldo had relieved some of the anxiety with a superb strike after 51 minutes to go 1-0 ahead and, 60 seconds later, the Seagulls were down to 10 men when their captain Lewis Dunk was sent off.
United still had to endure some tense moments, including a worryingly close chance for Brighton’s sub ex-Red Danny Welbeck, before Bruno Fernandes finally killed off Graham Potter’s side to make it 2-0 and fire the Reds back into the top four in the Premier League.
De Gea says it was torment from his viewpoint in the goal.
De Gea's sublime save
David De Gea denied Jakub Moder in the first half, to keep Brighton at bay...
“I was there saying ‘come on, we have to kill the game,’ because, in the Premier League, you never know. Even with 10 players, they can score,” our Spanish no. 1 told MUTV's Stewart Gardner.
“So it was too late the goal, but at least we scored the second goal. We should have scored much earlier, we had a couple of good chances and then you suffer when you don’t score the goal. You don’t kill the game, you suffer.
“They are a good team, they know how to play, but this is football. We win the game and we are happy.
“To be honest, I think we had the control of the game in the second half. The first half wasn’t the best, they had a couple of good chances but then we reacted very well in the second half. We scored a goal, we got the red card for them. Even like this, we gave a couple of chances at the end.”
Welbeck’s big moment to ruin the night for his former employers came in the 90th minute but he headed a good opportunity off target.
"Yeah, he had a massive chance to be honest, so he missed the chance and then we scored the goal from Bruno and we kill the game,” added De Gea.
“I think we started to press more high in the second half. We made them play less from the back, so we pressed high.
“It was difficult for them to get out because they like to have the ball and then Cristiano scored a great goal and, from that, they get the red card and we control the game until the last 10 minutes when they have a couple of chances. But, like I said, the performance was so-so but the three points are massive.”
De Gea: Let's keep fighting
Our no.1 hopes to build momentum after the success against Brighton...
De Gea pulled off a magnificent save from Jakub Moder in the 39th minute of the match to keep the Reds' clean sheet in tact and set up a more threatening second 45 minutes.
“To be honest, it was a very good one and helped us to keep a clean sheet,” he said.
“I think that’s very important for us to keep more clean sheets. I was very happy to make the save and then the team reacted very well in the second half and we get the three points.”
United now travel over the Pennines to Elland Road on Sunday to play Leeds United before flying to Spain for the first leg of our Champions League round-of-16 match against Atletico Madrid.
De Gea hopes the victory over Brighton will be the catalyst for a sustained winning run.
“Hopefully, this game may give us more confidence, more good feelings,” he stated.
“Then we have a big game on Sunday against Leeds away – a very difficult game and I think we have to be focused on that game. Don’t think more on the future, just Leeds.
“Of course, we want to stay there [top four], we should be fighting for more things than the top four but this the realistic thing we have to fight for the fourth. But let’s keep fighting, keep giving everything and let’s be finishing in the top four.”