Graham Potter refused to blame Neal Maupay for conceding a late penalty against Manchester United and backed the Brighton striker to overcome the disappointment.
Maupay had a mixed afternoon during Brighton’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United on Saturday, opening the scoring with an audacious panenka penalty before handling from a Harry Maguire header to set up Bruno Fernandes for a 100th-minute winner.
When asked whether he had seen Maupay take a penalty in that fashion before, Potter replied: “I’ve never seen him take that one before [panenka penalty] which is a good job as I would have definitely said to him “don’t do that!”
“I tend to not look at penalties and Billy [Reid, Brighton’s assistant manager] told me that he’d done that and I was like “thank god I didn’t see it!”
That goal took Maupay to four goal involvements – three goals and an assist – in Brighton’s first three Premier League games of the season and the Frenchman looked lively in attack alongside Aaron Connolly and Leandro Trossard.
Brighton thought they had grabbed a deserved equaliser in the 95th minute when Solly March headed in from Alireza Jahanbahksh’s cross but United went on the offensive from the kick-off, forcing a corner from which Maguire headed onto Maupay’s outstretched hand.
Referee Chris Kavanagh had initially blown for full-time but after consulting with his pitchside monitor, he decided to award the penalty, much to the dismay of Maupay who looked on aghast by the halfway line as Fernandes dispatched his spot-kick.
“I think it’s a classic example of the brain not functioning as well as it can and you can understand why that would as it was the last minute literally of a 100-minute game,” Potter said.
“There’s the emotion of the goal and all of a sudden it’s a bit of desperation moment and it’s hard to keep thinking clearly. It can happen, it’s a football action and we’ve obviously been heavily punished.”
“He’s that type of character, he’s had setbacks in his life, he’s had setbacks in his career. There’s no blame, there’s no bad feeling, we just have to take everything together.
“He’ll be better for this experience, hopefully, we’ll all be better for this experience because it has been a very traumatic one in terms of how disappointing it is and emotionally draining it has been.”
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