Saints threw away a match they dominated through lack of concentration and slack defending against a poor Manchester United side.

This is a game that Saints threw away, for long periods of the game they out passed and out thought the visitors only to give away a sloppy goal when on top.

The first goal saw Jose Fonte underhit a back pass to leave Robin Van Persie straight through one on one with Forster, the second goal saw a Wayne Rooney free kick catch everyone dreaming, Fraser Forster stayed on his line and no one tracked Van Persie who slotted in unmarked at the far post.

These were two of the three shots United had on target in the whole match and that perhaps emphasised which side was in control, this defeat was not because of our injury list or because of our small squad, it was merely because of individual error at key times and sadly that has happened in each of the last four games and in three of them has cost us points.

But there are plenty of plus's to take from the game and Saints can now regroup and go into a run of games that will help define the season starting at Burnley and continuing at Sheffield United. Not least the fact that we can compete with any side in this division even with an injury ravaged side.

Ronald Koeman now needs to get the side back to basics and cut out these individual errors that have blighted the last few games, it is in times of hardship that you find out the character of the players in a squad, in the main last night ours came through with flying colours in terms of attitude and our supporters need to see that and realise that although United are a pale shadow of their former selves they are still a decent side in the Premier league and that we lost this game through errors in areas that can be addressed rather than this being the start of a meltdown.

As the injured return to the squad Ronald Koeman will now know more about who should hold their place and who shouldn't, perhaps with our previous good run that hasn't been there and that a few cracks have been papered over.

Last night Koeman will have seen that Toby Alderweireld is the major cog in the defence, without him it does not look half as good both defensively and going forward, we lacked a confidence not just in general but in each other and no one seemed to be taking charge, without Alderweireld, Jose Fonte has made a costly error in the last two games he has relapsed back into his old ways, hopefully this is temporary but without Toby and with a faltering Jose, our full backs did not look half as effective and seemed to lack a little bit of confidence.

In midfield the worry is Tadic and Mane and not Shane Long, there were those who criticised Long but in the last few games Long has shown why we bought him with a battling attitude that has shown just what his value to the side is.

Dusan Tadic is just off form, at least I hope so.

Sadio Mane is fast becoming the scapegoat of some fans, a month ago people where questioning why we had paid £12 million for Long, now the roles have reversed and Mane's quality is under the microscope, last night he wasn't great but he does offer pace and a threat and he didn't stop running and battling, I think he has more to offer us than he has shown so far or indeed last night.

It was a sickening defeat last night, sickening because we didn't deserve it and we had thrown the game away rather than being beaten by a better side, United are a shadow of their former self and without Rooney and Van Persie they would have been well beaten, the way they celebrated last night beating a side like us reminded me of another side 23 or so years ago who had previously dominated the English Leagues and were suddenly finding they weren't the dominant force any more.

Photo: Action Images

SaintJez added 10:16 - Dec 9 That this game was played by 2 teams in the top 5 of the premier league is an embarrassment to the division. Massive lack of quality in all areas of the field by both teams. Is it confidence? Is it talent? Not sure.. probably a bit of both. Certainly it's not a game that Saints should have lost and it's bewildering that we did against the worst Man U side I can ever remember seeing. For me, Koeman's bubble has burst a little as he's had a shocking few weeks where his selections and tactics have been all wrong ever since the Villa game. Playing Alderweireld out of position in midfield initially unsettled the defence and, I'm convinced, at least contributed to his injury that we are now struggling to deal with. Not playing Reed during the midfield crisis is bordering on the bizarre - what has the kid done wrong to be left on the bench all this time? and he must be the only person in the country and thinks that Mane is worth a place in the starting XI. And football management 101 says don't make substitutions when defending a set piece as players tend to switch off and think about who is coming on and formation changes rather than marking and doing a job. You just can't make basic coaching errors like that. Such a shame to have wasted such a promsing start to the season. I hope we can turn this around quickly before the vultures circle for our better players in January

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TeamCortese added 10:34 - Dec 9 Great article Nick. The result was regrettable but we have shown the PL that we are a very competitive side and are by no means out of the race for a top 4 position. I do however disagree with a few of your points: Firstly, Mane and Tadic have dipped in form recently but despite this still represent a major goal threat -- especially with their link up play with Pelle. Tadic will eventually get back to form. Mane on the other hand has an issue with his game that needs to be resolved. And that is showing more of a footballing brain. He needs to calm-down and be more composured in the final third! However, we shouldn't forget that both of these players do not have prior experience in the PL and have still managed to get the ground running. In addition they are both fairly young and will get better with the time. This is beneficial for Saints as we can make a decent return on our investment. Shane Long on the other hand has several years of PL experience and does not provide the same level of effectiveness as the other two when attacking in the final third. While work rate is important we need players who have the creativity to unlock defences and finish at key moments of the match. For me he has only done that once at Leicester and needs to do it more consistently. In general he doesn't provide many assists and he's not clinical in front of goal. Regardless I'm not worried about our side. We will do well. If we put things into perspective who would have thought three years ago we would be disappointed losing to Man Utd at home? COYR

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Santos added 11:06 - Dec 9 To all those about to slate Mane/Tadic and Pelle (although his goal will have stemmed that today). Let remember Wanyama last season who started well then went off the boil got injured etc. In the leagues they have come from, there are only a handful of games that demand the level of intensity that the prem does demand every week (including Burnley next). Lets get behind them not slate. Yes I'm annoyed at the loss but our 200 appearance man was at fault for the first and should he not be organising the defence for the second. Keepers will always be in the spotlight when goals are scored but Forster needs to get over the villa goal quickly and put his frame in were it hurts. lets Move on

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ThereIn76 added 11:32 - Dec 9 Painful to watch and painful to take. Of the teams we've played this season only Newcastle and Sunderland were worse than Man Utd./ Having said that it was very enjoyable to see Nat Clyne keeping the England captain in his pockets for the whole game. The Koeman bubble has not burst - the only thing that has been exposed is the lack of depth in the squad. Who wouldn't have been happy with 5th at this point in the season?

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saintmark1976 added 11:44 - Dec 9 Another good article Nick. We have now played Arsenal and Man Utd and in my opinion they were both exceptionally poor given the size of their following and financial income.SaintJez could not have put it better the Premiership this season is indeed an embarrassment outside of Man City and Chelsea either of which will be champions. From our point of view we appear to be a top ten team at best and certainly not top four.Whilst individual errors cost us the game yesterday what was evident is that the squad does not have enough depth or quality.The question now is what will our owner do about it in January?

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thegeneral added 11:46 - Dec 9 Very good point from SaintJez about the timing of the substitution, FF should have done better though. I guess Mane will eventually give way to a fit Rodrigues, he has failed to impress and i agree that he just needs to take a breath and calm down a bit, i still hope after a season to adjust he will come good but at the moment he's not offering much. We did have our chances though but were not clinical enough, and i too was shouting shoot ffs. I though Clyne was excellent as was big Vic who is so much better with a season under his belt. Truth is we are not a top four team, and thats fine, 7th or above would be a great season. The table is starting to look a bit more usual, Man City and Chelsea are a class apart but every point has been bought with millions and millions of pounds, at least we are sustainable and perhaps in a season or two we can get in or around the 4th/5th/6th spot, my worry is that we will get raided in every transfer window and never really be more than lower top ten, we did (with hindsight) as bad as it felt at the time sell well in the summer, but i think we miss SRL, twenty minutes to go and in need of a goal he's a good player to have in the armoury, even if you halved his goals and assist from last season to 5 and 5 thats surely worth what we sold him for?

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cheltenhamsaint added 12:13 - Dec 9 Not the most fluid Saints performance you will see under Koeman but a good one nonetheless. We lost and thus took nothing from the match, and that is what really counts, but in the scheme of things we have come a long way in a short time. In my opinion, the performance (not the result) showed we do have strength in depth. Without five first team players we still restricted Utd to just three attempts on goal. No team has had fewer this season in the PL and Utd's lowest tally in 11 years, Stats don't win matches but the one to take heart from is that United (that's Manchester United not Scunthorpe or Carlisle Utd) touched the ball 6 times in our penalty area. Saints had 32 touches the other end. Defeat is a bitter pill to swallow but that is quite an astonishing achievement with a depleted squad of key players available.

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ExiledSupporter added 12:27 - Dec 9 Broadly you are right Nick...a game we should have won because the opposition were so poor and yet two individual mistakes gave it to the opposition. But several other things to take into account. First our passing amongst the forwards in the final third of the pitch has been woeful just recently (just about as bad as Man U's last night); some of our crosses have been woeful and this has certainly been a contributory feature in Pelle's loss of form. Tadic seems to have lost his sure touch and Mane first touch is often woeful. Second while I have come to appreciate Long's overall contribution more he does seem to squander many premium chances in front of goal. Can't agree with your comments about both full backs, again I thought they had excellent games in difficult circumstances. Wanyama also deserved credit for his battling performance. I was pleasantly surprised by Yoshida, mainly because I thought he would be a disaster up against Van Persie, but he pretty much held his own; though I wonder if he should have been warning Fonte about the presence of Van Persie behind him, nevertheless it was still Jose's fault If Pelle isn't firing properly, partly though lack of decent service recently, then it is difficult to envisage where we are going to get any reliable source of goals until Rodrigues returns and probably spends 3 mths before he gets back to his previous form. Once Alderweireld returns (please sign him and Bertrand permanently in January) with Scneiderlein and Cork (a little later in the case of the latter) we will have the backbone of the team back in place, but I think we shall need a couple of more signings in January. And please not Townsend as a part swap for Morgan with Spurs that would really be dissipating our resources.

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SonicBoom added 12:32 - Dec 9 Yep good article. However the Mane thing... He wasnt very good. In fact he's been poor for three or four games now. Last night with better composure and touch he could have made a difference. Remember he wasnt two or three million. He was 11 million. We should expect a level of performance and ability for that. I totally support anyone in a saints shirt but questioning a players performance doesn't mean he's a scapegoat, neither is it bedwetting.

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TimSaint added 13:27 - Dec 9 Frustration !!! Individual errors and performances cost us 3 valuable points last night. I know its an if, but if Fonte hadn't screwed up his back pass and we had cleared the Rooney cross, Man U would not have had a shot on target. FF was unlucky with the first goal, as it nutmegged him, but should have come out to collect in his 6 yard box for the 2nd - as he was doing at the emirates last week. We created enough chances to win comfortably, but a combination of poor finishing and good saves kept us at bay. We also got into good scoring chances many times, but failed to shoot. Mane tried to take on the entire united defence twice when it would have been easier to shoot, Davis looked to pass instead of shoot, Tadic is more worried about being the assist king than scoring so always passes and Yoshi should have shot first time. It was also frustrating at the poor delivery of free kicks and corners. This has been an issue all season and neither Davis, Morgan nor Tadic has managed a decent delivery - but this was perhaps eclipsed by Rooney taking uniteds only corner lol Despite not playing well, we created so much and made united look how they used to under big fat ron. Thinking about it, that was with 10 men really. Mane had his worst game for Saints, constantly mispassing and choosing the wrong options. His yellow card summed up his night. Long should have scored, but at least he got into the scoring positions - and even when he lost the ball, he impressively chased back 80 yards, won the ball back from Rooney with a great tackle, then pushed on and got into the box for the resulting attack. His reward for that was to be subbed, when perhaps he should have gone up front to a 4 4 2 formation to put pressure on the awful manc back 4. Oh well, hopefully we will have 1 or 2 returning this weekend and we can get a result at Burnley and then in Sheffield. Just hope Vic doesn't get booked - which i thought was going to happen last night, with that joke of a ref.

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owenthesaints added 13:38 - Dec 9 Totally agree with SonicBoom... and more. He's played at least eight games since he signed and scored 1, possibly 2 goals (dubious OG went against him) and what else? 'Shows great pace' – when? 'dipped in form' when? 'he'll learn' when? Poor refereeing decision not to send him off and force the Koolman to rethink his starting 11. If you think this is an anti-Mane response, you're right. Not blaming him as he doesn't pick the team but surely Mayuka (given the correct studs) is worth a start? Or one of the youngsters. Are you sure he's not a second cousin of George Weah – Ali Dia's son? Other than that a great start to the season and totally agree Nick that we would take a top six position coming up to Christmas.

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SingaporeSaint added 13:40 - Dec 9 Sickening defeat and agree with Jez on the substitution in timing. I also don't ubderstand taking off Long for Mayuka. Long was still full of running and although he missed chances he was at least on the end of things. I can't imagine Mayuka getting close, we basically dominated a game, gave goals away and made strange subs which prevented us getting back into it. Koeman has had a very bad 4 games for me. Another little moan - our corners are terrible. Do we not practice or are we just reliant on JWP? The popular press who don't watch us every week will say 'I told you so' and it is really sad because I think with some sensible mgt we wouldn't have lost any of these games. Back to sensible selections and game plans and we will get back to winning.

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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 13:40 - Dec 9 Mane's performance last night was one of the worst I've ever seen in a Saints shirt. He obviously has a lot of talent, and his first few games for the club were really encouraging but recently, along with Tadic and Pelle, he has been really struggling and he was very lucky not to have been sent off for that reckless challenge on Van Persie. Our whole attack is massively short on confidence. There's no cohesion, too many touches, no cutting edge or ruthlessness. It's as if each player's lack of decisiveness has rubbed off on each other and all that's left is a mess of missed opportunities. In the first 11 games of the season Saints had a chance conversion rate of 15% which was the 2nd highest in the league behind Chelsea. In the last 4 games that conversion rate has dropped to 4% and is the 3rd worst in the league over that period. The talent is there, in Pelle, Tadic and Mane. Their individual strengths are very different from each other and that offers an excellent blend that we've seen do so well earlier in the season. At the moment though their lack of form is really letting the team down. They just need to be more decisive in the final third, and be a bit more direct and ruthless with that final ball or finish. When they get a chance they need to snap it up, and punish teams for their mistakes. We let Man Utd get away with murder last night. Saints should've scored 3 or 4. Shane Long was the biggest culprit of missed chances, especially the back post header he put straight at De Gea, you simply have to take those chances. Long has missed a lot of good chances this season, he was amazing against Leicester but apart from that he's not impressed in front of goal. On a positive note: I agree with Exiled that Yoshida had a very good game last night, he was our best defender. Also, Steven Davis and Wanyama were excellent in midfield and they really didn't deserve to be on the losing side. Our centre midfield is so strong, with Schneiderlin, Davis, Wanyama and Cork we probably have one of the strongest centre midfield squads in the league. Defensive mistakes aside, if our front 3/4 can find some confidence, rediscover their form and start scoring some goals then a top 6 finish is a real possibility. We'll now see just how good a manager Koeman is because he's really got his work cut out to get our attackers firing on all cylinders again.

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Winchsaint added 14:30 - Dec 9 Incredibly frustrating-they had two outstanding players in De Gea who stopped everything bar the goal and RVP who took his two chances clinically, everyone else was terrible. Clyne, Davis, Wanyama, Bertrand all had excellent games by contrast with Davis especially just scything through their midfield like knife through butter. On another note, I thought the atmosphere at St Mary's was very flat, I know we are the paying customers and they are highly paid stars etc but the nervousness and negativity must have transmitted itself to the players. I was at the Emirates last week and our away support was outstanding as ever, but we were dangerously close to replicating the Highbury library feel last night, with the Man United fans fresh from their short trip down from Surrey out-singing us throughout. It's fine to say this player should have done this or that better after the game, but during it we need to give them our full support. We are better than the Arsenals and Chelseas of this world who sit on their hands, expect to always win and be entertained and only sing when they are ahead.

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SaintJez added 15:24 - Dec 9 I'd also stand up for Yoshida as I thought he did fine last night although I'd prefer Gardos to deputise. What I don't know re:Yoshida is how vocal he is - he seems very quiet on the pitch to me - and in that respect I have some sympathy with Fonte for the first. With Rooney bearing down on him it was awkward for Fonte to see Van Persie almost directly behind him. A good centre back pairing would be helping each other out here and barking instructions to the man in possession of the ball. There's only 2 words of relevance here - Keeper or Away. The keeper should be saying something too. Did any of that happen? I'm not sure but I sense probably nothing was said and Fonte was left to make his own call. Clearly Fonte should just get rid unless 100% certain the backpass was safe but that's easy to say in hindsight. It's situations like this where communication at the back is paramount and where a great centre backs value can really be seen.

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Consigliere added 15:39 - Dec 9 Agree with most of the posts on this thread. I always like to see the positives despite the disappointment of the result. The positives were 1. For most of the game we were much the better team despite all the injuries and missing players 2. Pele scored (even if it was a bit scrappy) 3. The defence looked solid throughout But there was a negative and for once I do criticise one of our players. Mane simply failed to learn from experience that he couldn't get down the wing, and he held the ball too long. He was also lucky to stay on the pitch when he chopped down RVP and would have walked had the other player made a fuss, rather than getting up and shaking his hand. Credit to RVP. I did enjoy watching Shrek make a fool of himself, beating the ground with his fists in frustration like a naughty toddler because the laws of physics hadn't been adapted to make the world as he wanted it to be!

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BoondockSaint added 15:58 - Dec 9 What makes this so frustrating is that like the Arsenal or Spurs or Liverpool games, we should have won this! We just don't capitalize on our chances. We need another proper striker in the next window, because we only have one-Pelle. I have the greatest respect for Fonte, I think he's a leader both on and off the field and in a lot of ways the heart of the club. So I give him a pass on a stupid pass once in a blue moon. However, Nick, I must disagree with "underhit"-it should never have be pased back in the first place! What does the opposition want to do with the ball when they get it? Bring it up field and get into the box! Why do it for them?? The play before that goal was unfortunately something we do too often: Had ball outside the box, instead of playing it in, knocked back to outside the area in the middle. Fire it into the area to keep pressure on them? No, knock it back to midfield. Long pass into the area or speed up the wing and cross? No, knock back to in front of our area. Little pressure-clear it up field and try to win a 50/50? No, knock back to Forster, who waits until VP is 20 feet from him before he puts his foot through it. I don't want to hear about "possession" it doesn't win games (unless you are killing the clock near the end). ManU were apt to make mistakes at the back. We just had to keep the pressure on and make their backs turn back towards goal. As I have said in previous posts: Mane should have to fit into the team, not the other way around. Let Tadic play where he wants. I would be interested to see his assist stats before he made way for Mane and after. Long has pace, and makes a few neat passes, but he is not a proper striker. When he gets the ball in the area, he doesn't know where he is in relation to the goal and has no clue what to do with it. The League is an embarassment because the usual rich clubs are having trouble???? So you would prefer it that clubs like us are there just to make up the numbers for the rich boys to beat up on and we're supposed to tug our forelocks and be grateful.??? If that's the type of competition you like, go watch pro wrestling or La Liga!! Rant over, march on........

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Whatsforpud added 16:09 - Dec 9 In defence of Fonte, he's having a good season generally. When you look at the replay of the first goal, van Persie started to run towards goal on Fonte's blindside, anticipating a passback. He was only ever going to intercept such a pass if it was underhit. He would probably expect this to happen about once a season, and was rewarded here for persistence. Agree with everyone's comment on the standard of crossing. They either fail to clear the first defender, or are easy meat for the keeper. Talking of keepers, surely a high inswinging centre from 40 yards has to be Forster's ball to deal with. He seems to be better at instinctive saving than decision making.

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LostBoys added 01:37 - Dec 10 I agree with all this but even after a day I cannot understand how we did not beat the crap in front of us. There were some hugely rubbish performances out there from some of our players as well as the shocking misses.
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