United fail to take advantage after Danso is sent off
After four games last season, and one appeal for respect, Jose Mourinho had six points as manager of Manchester United – one more than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at the same stage, as he heads into an international break promising that his team are “getting there”.
Getting where, exactly, is not yet clear, although it feels an awful long way from the ruthless winning machine of old, with the ghosts of the past making more grim proclamations about the future. Paul Scholes said that it would take another five transfer windows for United to fix their problems and already this season’s Premier League title race feels like a competition taking place in a different room.
United have not earned fewer points from their first four games of a season since the days when the Class of ’92 were still in the year of 1992, that being the season of Sir Alex Ferguson’s first Premier League title – 1992-1993. Then they began with two defeats, one draw and one win and from such an inauspicious start, United bounced back to win their first league title in 26 years. These days it is a different competition with much less of a margin for error.
They played 21 minutes of regulation and added-on time after Kevin Danso was dismissed for a second yellow card, up against a Southampton team struggling for confidence themselves, and yet United never looked like overwhelming the home side. It is just that the United of 2019 are so mediocre, to the extent that their goalscorer, Daniel James, a promising young prospect with a fierce right foot, stands out as their best attacking option.
They have gambled on discarding Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez and putting faith in young players, an approach which is all part of the mysticism of the club but on this occasion was simply not enough. At 17, Mason Greenwood was the last striker thrust into the game and might even have won it with a shot well-saved by Angus Gunn and then a good penalty appeal. Will these kids deliver for Solskjaer the way that another generation once did for Ferguson? Certainly Scholes, one of that fabled 1990s generation, seems to think it will only be better signings that change the club’s fortunes.
The dreary saga of Paul Pogba’s future dragged on, with Solskjaer again obliged to reject the possibility that the midfielder might depart for Real Madrid following some cryptic remarks from Zinedine Zidane in Madrid. Pogba left St Mary’s with a limp, although Solskjaer said the Frenchman would report for international duty and then come back after Monday’s transfer deadline a United player. His effect on the game was fleeting once more.
This was a crucial point for Southampton. Jannik Vestergaard outjumped Victor Lindelof for their equaliser before the hour, created by Danso before his dismissal. The hosts had struggled once their early pressing of United subsided but Ralph Hasenhuttl changed the approach at half-time and it paid dividends. There were some excellent individual performances, from Oriol Romeu, Vestergaard and the relentless Danny Ings.
Later Hasenhuttl explained that he had asked his midfielders, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Romeu, to resist the temptation to chase down Pogba at every occasion and the greater balance worked better. Indeed, once Vestergaard scored it felt like a game that could go either way. Danso had been booked in the first half and his second yellow card after 73 minutes was a clumsy takedown of Scott McTominay.
It had all started so well for United when James scored his third Premier League goal of the season after 10 minutes, cutting in from the left and lashing the ball past Gunn. The 21-yearold is quick and he takes his shots early, an approach that has yielded him the same number of league goals as Sanchez achieved in 18 months.
That was the moment for United to kill the game and there was a save 12 minutes later from Gunn from another James shot that was important. This was the period in which United should have stretched their lead but the chance was missed, Solskjaer would reflect later. “We dominated the last three games and we know we are on the right track, getting used to that way of playing,” he said. “The last three games haven’t given us many points in return but we are getting there. We are getting better playing this way.
“We just got the game where we wanted. We were winning 1-0 and that is where you can get that counterattack in football, be more clinical and ruthless when we go forward, but it wasn’t to be. We just gave them enough encouragement to stay in the game.”
Stay in the game Saints did, a good sign for the spirit and energy in the side. Ings’s running galvanised their attack and he was unlucky that Che Adams did not anticipate a cross of his from the right. The equaliser came when Ings’s flicked header was initially saved by David de Gea. Danso took his time over the cross and dropped it onto the head of Vestergaard.
His red card prompted a major reorganisation from Hasenhuttl at the point where he might even have been thinking about trying to win the game. “It’s about the character and mentality,” the Austrian said. “The guys showed a lot of it and we are very happy about that.”