Saints V Manchester United The Verdict
Sunday, 29th Nov 2020 18:06

Just as it looked like we were going to move into 3rd in the table, the wheels came off in big style as Saints handed Manchester United victory from the jaws of defeat, but we now have to dust ourselves down and get going again.

Saints didn't look right at Wolves and this was the case again against Manchester United, we looked slow both mentally and physically with too many players having off days.

Without naming names there were few out there who will have come off pleased with their performance, too many times we needed an extra second on the ball and got caught out, or we switched off mentally and got caught out.

We could easily have been two down before we had got started, we had to weather an early bluster from United that saw errors hand the visitors chances, one came when McCarthy seemingly called for the ball as Vestergaard let it run but the keeper stopped and was relieved to see Rashford fire into the side netting when it looked simple to score.

The second came when McCarthy kicked the ball straight to a United player, he saved the subsequent shot and then made a great second save, but he should really have had to make either.

After weathering the first 20 minutes it was Saints who took the lead when Jan Bednarek headed home a James Ward Prowse near post corner and 10 minutes later it was 2-0 when Ward Prowse himself sent an unstoppable free kick that was less than an inch from the post.

Saints looked well in control for the rest of the half and you hoped that we had turned the corner.

For the first 15 minutes of the second half we looked likely to score the next goal and if we did that it would have demoralised United, instead we gave the ball away cheaply on the hour mark and letting United back into the game.

It looked like we had weathered another storm with 16 minutes to go, but then we switched off again, McCarthy flapped as a corner and when the ball came back in again we had pushed up but Jannik Vestergaard hadn't reacted and stayed back to play Cavani well onside to have a free header to equalise.

Now things looked dire, but we dug in and although we still kept giving the ball away cheaply we looked likely to hold on as the 5 minutes of injury time headed for the half way point.

But then we switched off again we gave the ball away yet again, we allowed Marcus Rashford time to put the ball into the box and there was Cavani again free to head home.

We had handed them the game on a plate, because we couldn't seem to do the basics when we needed too, how many times did we want that extra second on the ball, how many times did we hold on to it and get robbed in possession when there was a pass on and how many times did we try and play our way out of things when United had played us at our own game and pressed us hard ?

But the game is over and we now have to move on, we have 8 days before the next game and Ralph Hasenhuttl has to rally his troops and freshen things up, truth is we looked weary and with injuries in key areas we couldn't make much needed changes.

But it isn't the end of the world, it can still be a good season, as I said in the preview we have to make sure one defeat doesn't become two, we have to make sure we bounce back from this in the next couple of games.

Hopefully the return of Danny Ings and Nathan Redmond will offer us some options we badly lacked today, Ralph will have learnt something about his squad today, hopefully his players will have also learnt that yes they can compete with the best, but you cannot let up even for a minute.

As I have long said on this site, "It is never about what you have just done but what you do next"