As I wrote in the preview, sometimes we will get away with it and sometimes we won't, this was more of the same, but it was far from being just about luck, we got down in the dirt and battled for a deserved point.

Saints travelled up to Old Trafford on a run of good form, but the Manchester United were the form team of the Premier League and had swept everyone aside since a first restart day draw against Spurs.

But Saints started brightly and buzzed around in the opening 20 minutes although they nearly went behind against the run of play when James Ward Prowse lost possession and it needed a smart save from McCarthy one on one to keep the sides level.

But on 12 minutes if Old Trafford wasn't empty it would have been shocked into silence when Saints took the lead, it was smart work from Danny Ings who read which way Pogba would turn and nicked the ball from his feet, he layed it to Nathan Redmond who still had work to do, bursting forward and then spotting Stuart Armstrong and sending over a perfectly weighted pin point accurate cross for the Scot to take one touch and finish with aplomb.

But Saints being Saints we had to do a spot of lax defending, United's first goal saw us fail to mark Martial and allowing him to turn and lay it off to Rashford in too much space on the left to fire home.

Then within 3 minutes we were behind when we allowed Martial too much space himself and he ghosted past a couple of defenders and fired home.

These two goals were again down to a lack of concentration, organisation and being able to read the game.

At this stage it did not look good, United looked capable of a 3rd and more, but we dug in and got stuck in, sometimes too hard and TV replays showed that Romeu following through on Mason Greenwood should probably have got a red.

But we got to the break with no further damage which in itself was an achievement.

In the second half we in the main stifled United and stopped giving them too many chances, although there were a couple of tense moments, but as we neared the last 10 minutes or so you could sense the flow of the game had changed and Saints were more confident going forward and with nothing to lose were committing players in attack to push for an equaliser.

That almost came with 4 minutes to go when Nathan Redmond cut in and fired a great short which produced a superb save, at that moment you thought perhaps the game was running away from us.

But on 87 minutes Ralph made a change and on came Michael Obafemi and his moment would come.

We needed something to go our way though and a slice of luck for us but not for Brandon Williams came on 90 minutes, an accidental clash of heads saw the United player with a gash on his forehead and the blood could not be stopped, he had to go off, but United were unable to make another substitution so had to play on with 10 men.

This gave Saints further impetus, but how long did they have left, the board said 5 minutes but that was given just before the injury to Williams so it could be anything between 5 & 10 minutes of injury time.

The incident seemed to unnerve United and they were lacking organisation and this spurred us on, in the 6th minute a corner was put in perfectly by Ward Prowse and Jan Bednarek's glancing header down was turned in on the line to ensure that the United defender on the post did not clear.

Saints saw out injury time comfortably and United were deflated, if anything another Saints goal was the more likely.

So a game that had everything I predicted in the preview including sadly the lapses in concentration that cost us soft goals, but what it also had was a fighting performance, a team spirit that seems to grow by the game, it wasn't there before the break so much, but it is plain to see now.

We got down in the dirt and got dirty in a way that we didn't do earlier in the season, we chased and we bit at the legs of players hassled them, but and I know that the I keep harping on about it, the defensive lapses have to be dealt with, we can press well for periods in the game, but we cannot keep up the high intensity for 90 minutes, no teams can, when need a breather we have to be able to defend and keep teams out.

We should not get carried away, we still need to address the defensive problems, but if we do next season then we are a top 10 side.

I have always kept faith this season, I am not blowing my own trumpet, but I have been consistent in my comments and criticisms and I have also been constructive. I said at the start of the season that we were a potential top 10 side but our defensive lapses would cost us, I have stuck to that and been proved right.

But even in that darkest hour against Leicester, I knew we were not a bad side, that the season could be turned around and it has.

We have a manager and a team to be proud of again and this season will finish not with relegation, but with disappointment that with less soft goals conceded we could have been not only in the top 10 but the 6th position that Wolves sit in today only 10 points clear, that would have been only 4 points had we held on to a 2-0 half time lead against them.

This was a great result, there was a feeling when we returned that our first two wins were against teams in freefall, but this was a point against a United team in it's best form for several years.

Now we have to finish with a flourish and look to see how high we can get, 9th or 10th may well be beyond us, but certainly 11th should be the target.

Photo: Action Images

dirk_doone added 15:05 - Jul 14 60years, I appreciate your polite reply but I remain a big fan of Jack Stephens, who I think will be at the heart of our defence for many more years and continue to improve like Fonte did: The enormous number of goals we conceded when Valery and Vestergaard were both playing, especially in that Leicester game, masks some very good performances by our defence this season against top attacks, like: Saints 1 Man City 0 Leicester 1 Saints 2 Saints 1 Spurs 0 Chelsea 0 Saints 2 On current from, the whole team, including the defence, is playing like a top 8 team. The team spirit is terrific and I think if we start tinkering with it, that might well be lost. That's just my opinion. I'm not always right so I understand that not everyone will agree with me. Anyway, let's all just enjoy the great football Saints are playing right now. It reminds me very much of the end of the 2015/16 season.

3

dirk_doone added 15:19 - Jul 14 60years, I appreciate your polite reply and apologise for my sarcasm. I'm not always right but in the case of Stephens and Bednarek, I hope that I am. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch Saints play like they are right now and not only for Saints fans. I was reading the comments from fans of other clubs at the end of the BBC match report and many of them remarked on what entertaining football Saints play; and some even said this was the best match since the lockdown.

3

Peterx added 15:31 - Jul 14 MU will be a major force next year with their attacking prowess. The fact that we got a point of them given what they have been doing to teams was v. impressive. Pogba and Fernandes suddenly did not look as good against us, but we know they are top class. One of the results of the season. Redmond and Bertrand where my two candidates for MOM. I think Long is better than Che right now but obviously makes sense to persevere with Che to develop for the longer term.

2

saintpete01 added 18:15 - Jul 14 No end of season flip flops and sun cream All credit Ralph
3

KriSaint added 13:13 - Jul 15 Thanks for another good article, Nick; my Man of the Match goes to Danny Ings for his incredible work rate all over the pitch, control of the ball, team spirit enhancement, danger in both build-up and finishing and his confidence and cleverness. The man remarkably rarely loses the ball, and he is on the ball quite a lot every game! Also I´d like to emphasize: great substitution by Ralph, bringing on Obafemi and asking Smallbone to play in Romeus no. 6 position - as defensive midfielder, where Will did very well in his running, positioning and ball control in our so important and so well-rehearsed/trained/executed short passing up the field. Very enjoyable to watch how cool, brave and exciting a team we have actually become. I credit Ralph for that , of course. So happy that he extended his contract with us for four years. Way to go, Ralph. He is an exciting manager, and I believe the players respect and like him a lot. As far as Smallbone is concerned, he has been added to the A squad to stay there, it looks. Very useful squad player with a lot af potential, and for his age he certainly always looks calm, cool and collected. If Adams improves after having tasted PL football for one season...., because he needs to, to help Ings and the team scoring goals, I don´t really think we need to be desperate to bring in more than one or two, maximum three new players in the transfer window (depending on any departing Saints players, of course and depending on whether Ralph wellcomes back a player like Harrison Reed, who has done very well at Fulham). As always a lot of other "ifs", of course, but I am delighted with the way we have improved, and I´m sure I share this feeling and positivism with a lot of you guys, fellow Saints fans.

0

Blogs 32 bloggers

Polls