A job well done – full review of United’s trip to Southampton

It was well and truly a job well done by the reds as we managed to clinch our first away win of the season (and rightly so)!

(Copyright: Images taken off Pixabay)

A successful trip to Southampton saw the reds win their first away game of the season on Saturday. After returning from the international break, what better way to start than a 12:30 kick off in the sunshine. Looking back, you’d have liked to have thought that there was no doubt of a win going into the game. But then again, I think there was a part (a very small part) of me that did have some doubt.

Before the game, there was discussions about it being a big game for us. In which it was to an extent. But Southampton shouldn’t be a big game for us. It should be a game which we turn up to, knowingly that we can happily dismantle them and put 2-3 past them, comfortably. In the end, we did, but we made bloody hard work of it.

The choice of Christian Eriksen was an interesting one, to say the least, by Ten Hag. We definitely couldn’t go with Casemiro. (I won’t say anymore on that topic.) So I thought he was going to trust Collyer, like he has in pre-season and like he did against Liverpool. Or we could have seen the introduction to Manuel Ugarte, but that came later on. Nevertheless, he chose the Dane, and it wasn’t a bad choice at all. We all know Eriksen is a technically brilliant footballer and has a corker of a pass in his right foot, and he showed his excellence is some good spells on Saturday.

In terms of the performance, the first 35 minutes was really concerning. The very small amount of doubt that I had before the game started to increase a lot more throughout the first half, and Dalot giving away that penalty gave me flashbacks to worse days. Fortunately enough, the amazing save from Onana gave them all a kick up the backside and put us right into gear. A brilliant turnaround was exactly what happened when De Ligt opened his account for United in a man of the match performance.

Rashford took his goal very well and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We all know that Rashford is a confidence player, and I previously have talked about how he just needed that one to go in on a deflection to get into gear. He’s only gone and done more than get a deflection. I really do hope this is a turnaround for him now and he gets back to being the player we all know he can be. Garnacho then topped of a fantastic performance for the travelling reds and although Southampton never looked like threatening us, our star boy just made sure that we brought all three points back to Old Trafford.

It's a quick turn around for us now as we welcome League One Barnsley to the Theatre Of Dreams on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup. I’ll be there to watch the reds dance under the lights for the first time this season.

As always, don’t forget to contact us with your opinions of the game with the possibility of featuring in next week’s blog.

My MOTM: De Ligt

Biggest impact: De Ligt

Worst Performance: Dalot