[ijc]

Sometimes a team would 'need' this. Win when you play ugly. Hallmark of potential champions. Chelsea used to do it all the time under Mourinho. You can't expect to steamroll 4-0 over everyone. Still happy - prefer to win ugly 0-1 then play champagne football and draw 2-2.

Let's hope for a big win vs Palace next time out.

Jones MOTM. Immense at the back.

 

[Godfather]

Big win but we really looked shit out there today. Our CBs couldnt win a single header against Long and Mata and Mkhi were doing nothing. Same goes for Valencia.

 

[automaticflare]

Delighted with that 3 points. I thought Southampton played brilliant today but never really created a clear chance or made de gea make a save because our defense was absolutely superb.

This is a brilliant 3 points

Long should have had a red
Herrera should have at least hit the target late on

Great hard working performance. Love it

 

[whatwha]

Gotta love the moaning after a clean sheet on the road.

We were dominated for the entire second half and had to park the bus - against Soton. I'm not moaning, happy enough with the three points, but this Utd team is not as great as some like to think.

 

[Lord Zlatan]

Pathetic performance. Won't win the league playing many games like that. Reminded of that game last season when we had 6 or 7 defenders vs Watford.

We won plenty of league titles with games like that in the season. Goods 3 points. Forget about it and enjoy your saturday night, hopefully with a Leicester win.

 

[OneUnited24]

I understand why people are jumping on the backs of Jose and the team, it was a poor performance. But this is exactly the type of game we would have lost last season.

As much as people dont like to accept, having a organised defensive shape is worth its weight in gold. Today we were poor with a number of our attackers failing to turn up yet they put in a shift and we got the 3 points. The old adage but if you can win playing poorly that the hallmark of a good team

 

[LLMU]

3 points from a sloppy performance. Good win though.

 

[RedRonaldo]

We look so average without Pogba. 3 away points though so can't complain.

 

[Peanut Butter]

Play badly away from home at a tricky ground and still come away with 3 points?

Reminds me of the Fergie days.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

What you do is you tell him to step back in the technical zone. What a fecking twat Sent off for entering the pitch? When Pochettino did that last season (engaging in shoving with the players), they did feck all.

I recall Kenny Dalglish doing it, although he was sent off by Stevie Gerrard.

 

[Canagel]

Relieved to win but that was awful to watch. We seemed to get worse as the match went on. We added Herrera and Smalling for Mata and Mkhitaryan and instead of actually regaining control we looked more confused. This has to stop. We cant just keep inviting pressure like that.

 

[George Owen]

fecking hell... Those last 25 minutes.

Hate we put ourselves in this situations, but at least our defence got a good test.

Games like this will be key later on the final run for the league. 3 points n clean sheet, that's what matters now, come on!!

Phil Jones my MOTM.

 

[Freak]

When a win feels like a defeat.Eventually we will come unstuck if we don't improve.Happy with the 3 points but after Palace next weekend the games will get harder.I just hope Southampton play like that when the other big clubs visit them.

They won't. They'll do what Stoke did when they bent over for Chelsea today.

 

[donkeyfish]

I don't particularly mind that we drop very deep in games, but I'm not impressed with our counter attacking today. I think we should improve our clearances, both to increase the probability of creating a chance and to relieve some pressure.

Solid defending though, at least centrally. Bailly and Jones were good, so were Fellaini and Matic. That's comforting.

 

[Ace of Spades]

The problem was Mkhi, Mata and Valencia were shit in the first half.Add that to the fact that Fellaini and Matic in a two man midfield just is not able to control games and we have a big problem.

 

[TimScoreboard]

Performances like that can be as good as a 5-0 for confidence, we had to dig deep to grind that one out

 

[Anustart89]

The ref was fecking diabolical all game.

Yup.

People will say that a referee that gets two big calls wrong is having a bad game, but IMO this is the worst kind of performance, where it's so one-sided that one team can't get a rhythm going. When we ventured up the pitch they were allowed to just push us off the ball with no action from the ref.

Based on the yellows in the game, you'd think that we were doing a hatchet job on them whereas the reality is that they made the worst tackle in the game and we were carded for normal fouls. And punished for technicalities, like Herrera passing the ball to Lukaku after the whistle had gone.

 

[markorm]

I thought we'd march on for a 0-4 win, I think we neeeded the 2nd before HT. They kept in the game and pushed on, we couldn't handle it.


Rashford was fecking great defensively, but we were pushed back so far, to allow that to happen wasn't good.

They played well, we won. Three points, on we march. End of.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

A classic Jose win. De Gea didn't have a save to make? Professional job.

You would think they hit the bar a number of times and we had to make loads of clearances off the line the way some are talking.

 

[LoneStar]

I don't necessarily like it either, but he's had so much success with it in the past so why change?

I understand parking the bus if we are playing a top team. But we were playing Southampton, not prime Barca today. We should have brought on Martial at half time and gone for scoring goals.

 

[RooneyLegend]

Only 2 goals conceded so far. I think that is why will definitely be in the running for the title this season.

We haven't yet played a team that actually prides itself on creating and taking chances. Stoke showed our defence can be got at, Madrid didn't struggle creatively against us.

 

[Jim Beam]

Should have put it to bed in the first half as we had more of the game. Second half wasn't good at all as we didn't have any control and weren't so dangerous on the counter like in our previous games.

We did fight hard for those 3 points. A massive 3 points which allow us to continue our good record in this season so credit to the team on that. But, we must improve on that second half performance.
Jones motm without a doubt. Best keeper in the world reliable as always and Lukaku did his best considering how we were playing.

 

[djdhrubs]

Only saw the 2nd half. I was getting angrier as the 2nd half wore on. We seemed to be giving them crossing practice at one point. I almost lost my sh*t when we gave away a couple of set pieces after Ward-Prowse came on. We are not good enough to just defend a 1-0 lead and get away with it consistently. They had concrete chances. We seem to be awful at defending corners despite having some very tall people in our team. Even if a cross came in just stood up rather than whipped in, one of their players seemed to get their head to it.

I sort of understood why Smalling came on instead of Martial. We definitely looked like we'd concede from a header. Had we picked the correct players that could have been done much more easily than it was.

Fellaini had a great game, Matic was fairly solid, Jones was fine. I can't think of any other players who had a good 2nd half.

 

[GrandJury]

Pathetic performance. Won't win the league playing many games like that. Reminded of that game last season when we had 6 or 7 defenders vs Watford.

Really? Because I thought winning games where you're second best is exactly what's needed to win the league.

 

[#07]

In recent memory I can remember us playing decently only once at Southampton, in Martial's debut season when we won 3-2 (and we held on at the end of that game).

In pretty much every other game at Southampton we've been awful. Fergie's last season, Van Persie rescued us with two late goals. Season after we were utterly dire and Mata bailed us out with a free kick. Season after that Van Persie literally robbed them with two goals after a DIRE performance. Last season we drew in one of the most boring games ever.

Its not an easy place to go but we went there and got the three points. That's good enough for me.

 

[BusbyMalone]

Put a foot on the pitch.

Pathetic by the ref

Seriously?? My god.

Should be like Klopp. Give the ref and fourth official dogs abuse and everyone smiles and laughs 'cause he's sooooo charismatic.

 

[Triple.Threat]

Delighted to get out of there with all 3 points. Don't know if Jose was being un-adventurous or wanted to see if the boys could grind those tough 0-1 away results.

Mata, Miki and Rashford all had a nightmare of a game.

 

[MadMike]

I'm actually very happy we got the 3 points. Always hate playing Soton away. They are a good team. This was a possible banana skin and we did well to avoid it.

We didn't play the best football, but I don't really care about that today. We're not gonna smash 4 goals every week. If we want to be at the business end of the table come May we need to be winning when we're shit and we did that today.

 

[Sandikan]

Terrible performance, honestly don't think we'll be close to the title. IMO the title race is between Chelsea and City. Those sorts of wins aren't going to be sustainable for the whole season. Against a team with more of a cutting edge those points are going to be dropped.

Do you think City's last 3 games are going to be sustainable?
1-0 away when not playing well Is a great sign. You only need to sift through the last 4 years to see what results we got when not playing well then

 

[markorm]

Why the feck did Jose get sent off???

Probably calling the ref and absolute fecking joke of an official who doesn't deserve to wear the shirt.

And he'd be right.

 

[MZX7]

Mata, Valencia, Young all looked tired. So did Mkhitaryan and Rashford by the end of their spells.

Glad we held on but the CL fixture midweek might result in a few injuries if we fail to recuperate, rejuvenate, rest and rotate.

How awesome is it to see Jones (written off by quite a few) outperforming Bailly (the messaih everyone was salivating for) every single game. It's great to see such healthy competition at the back.

Unnecessary to bring in so many defenders. I don't know if Carrick was on the bench but I felt like Carrick should have come in instead of Herrera to slow down the pace and control the midfield. Matic, Carrick and Fellaini would have probably made the game less tense than it became ultimately.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Disagree with pretty much everything in that post. Mourinho clearly brought Herrera on to gain some control and he failed miserably. He then missed an absolute sitter just to top it off. Fellaini as usual contributed to us having no control which has been a recurring theme throughout his United career.

Those things happened but i feel like you are only focusing or remembering the negatives. I saw Herrera rob the ball off the southampton players while they were setting up outside the box on a few occasions. he should have killed the game off sure, we all saw that. Fellaini was energetic and box to box today, id give him a 7/10, maybe 8 for the goal line clearance. which is pretty good for fellaini standards. i didnt praise the midfield btw but i could see why some did.

 

[Raoul]

We were dominated for the entire second half and had to park the bus - against Soton. I'm not moaning, happy enough with the three points, but this Utd team is not as great as some like to think.

Ok, so we looked shaky compared with the 4-0s in recent weeks. Still 3 points can't be complained about. I'm sure Mourinho will make the appropriate adjustments before the next two games this week.

 

[GrandJury]

I understand why people are jumping on the backs of Jose and the team, it was a poor performance. But this is exactly the type of game we would have lost last season.

As much as people dont like to accept, having a organised defensive shape is worth its weight in gold. Today we were poor with a number of our attackers failing to turn up yet they put in a shift and we got the 3 points. The old adage but if you can win playing poorly that the hallmark of a good team

3 points. Haters gonna hate.

 

[VP]

That was a bit cowardly.

I also don't understand why Mourinho doesn't play our best players. Herrera is a comfortably better player than Fellaini.

 

[Deleted member 101472]

It was evident today more than ever just what Pogba offers the team. When he plays, he's the focal point of the midfield and everyone is positioned to get the best from him. Today, there was too much standing off.

Herrera shouldn't get gametime again for a while after that performance. @GifLord aroind the 63:10 mark rashford goes on a dribble, gets a lucky break and then Herrera comes in where he had a little bit of space and could have let the ball roll through him but he dribbled it back into the Southampton players. The man is constantly trying to play one dimensional and not catering to the needs of the team at all.

 

[OneUnited24]

Delighted to get out of there with all 3 points. Don't know if Jose was being un-adventurous or wanted to see if the boys could grind those tough 0-1 away results.

Mata, Miki and Rashford all had a nightmare of a game.

In his post match interview he said he felt the team wasnt sharp and didnt believe they could get the 3-4 goals they usually get so he opted to get the points.

"I felt some of the boys were not sharp. I didn't feel like we could score three or four goals like we sometimes do so the option was to make sure we got the points."

 

[markorm]

Mata, Valencia, Young all looked tired. So did Mkhitaryan and Rashford by the end of their spells.

Glad we held on but the CL fixture midweek might result in a few injuries if we fail to recuperate, rejuvenate, rest and rotate.

How awesome is it to see Jones (written off by quite a few) outperforming Bailly (the messaih everyone was salivating for) every single game. It's great to see such healthy competition at the back.

Unnecessary to bring in so many defenders. I don't know if Carrick was on the bench but I felt like Carrick should have come in instead of Herrera to slow down the pace and control the midfield. Matic, Carrick and Fellaini would have probably made the game less tense than it became ultimately.

I think that's what Herrera should have done, didn't happen though. I don't think he played well at all.

 

[Ramshock]

Fire Jose Sell Fellaini

 

[Striker10]

You can't always play well. I think we played better at Stoke and messed up. Today, we were dire BUT come away with three points. We weren't fluid but could have got 3 goals. Results and performances like this help. You see Lukakus reaction at the final whistle. This is character building. It would be nice if we'd have kicked on once we scored but we dug in. That's all we needed to get the three points.

 

[waza7111]

Terrible performance and unbelievably negative football but I will accept one bad game after our recent form.