ROMERO SAVES IT FOR JOSE

Keeper is the hero for United as Mourinho rests his star names

THE message must have been lost in translation. While Jose Mourinho was doing his best to cast the Premier League as the straw his back could do without, his second- string goalkeeper was evidently hearing that defeats are punishable by public lashings.

Sergio Romero jumped left and right, up and down, each time as if this game actually mattered. A Manolo Gabbiadini penalty after five minutes? Saved. A close-range rocket from Oriol Romeu? Nudged wide. A drive from James Ward-Prowse to the top corner? Dealt with.

It was a stunning performance, wonderfully off-message, and good enough to soothe the more immediate concerns about the post-David de Gea landscape. Not exactly a like-for-like replacement, as De Gea is arguably the world’s best in the position and his likely departure to Real Madrid will sting. Of course it will.

But this was also a display that went some way to validating Mourinho’s view that Romero is a safe pair of hands for the biggest game of United’s season, when they contest the Europa League final against Ajax next Wednesday. With 11 clean sheets in 17 starts, to sit with his 87 Argentina caps, it is increasingly hard to see the 30-year- old as any kind of weak link.

Of course, clean sheets only represent a mild glory for a club like United — they used to measure themselves in wins against all comers, not scrappy draws at Southampton. But this moment in their history is a curiosity as much as anything else, where Europe’s second competition has been accorded a significance it has never previously known, and where a triumph in the EFL Cup has contributed to ‘tremendous progress’ in the view of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward.

That despite their immovable rooting to sixth place and a draw here that has ensured United will now post fewer wins in a season than at any other point in the Premier League era. That includes the days of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, which are generally best forgotten.

The hope they hold is that the Europa League final will sufficiently compensate, and it might well do — Champions League football and a second trophy after the EFL Cup would indisputa-indisputably represent tangibleangible steps forward, too go with the improvedved performances under Mourinho.

But ‘ tremendous’? That still feels like a wobbly overreach on the PR highwire.

But on they trudge, throughh the 62nd of 64 games this season.on. When it was done,one, Mourinho signeded off with familiar grumbles about the workload, and a gripe about the lack of sympathetic ears from the powers that be. There was also a concern for Marouane Fellaini who limped off with a hamstring problem.

Not ideal, but better than Southampton, whose own battles with the notion of progress could bring sharp consequences. Their manager, Claude Puel, has long seemed a doomed man and that was always unlikely to change, irrespective of what played out in this game.

Southampton are ambitious, a methodical club, and it is glaring to those who make the critical decisions that this season has marked the first ttimei in seven yeayears that the club have not improved their final league positionposition. That’s no great crime in a league of such berserk spending, but it’s not a great look and is supplemented by a feeling that the players are no longer responding to their manager. His seat is hotter than most right now, even if the focus on this match was more about his opposite number. To that end, Mourinho made four changes to the side beaten 2-1 at Tottenham, with De Gea, Daley Blind, Jesse Lingard and Michael Carrick — who has agreed a new one-year contract extension — moved out for Romero, Matteo Darmian, Marouane Fellaini and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Hardly his strongest available line-up, with only Romero and Mkhitaryan and one of Phil Jones or Chris Smalling likely to play from the start against Ajax next week.

But it also wasn’t the collection of ground staff, local school children and raffle winners that Mourinho would have you believe is necessary to fulfil their fixtures these days. It was, with the sole exception of Axel Tuanzebe, a team of experienced internationals, where the greenest among the other 10 — Anthony Martial — had 15 full caps.

So not bad, certainly for a second string. And certainly strong for a fixture that, for United’s purposes at least, had no pulse, beyond the auditioning of Jones against Smalling and the exercising of Romero before the final.

On that front, Smalling edged Jones and Romero was exceptional, starting with his brilliant intervention from the penalty five minutes in. It was awarded for a handball against Eric Bailly that occurred two yards outside his area, so there was a degree of justice in the save.

From there he made saves to stop Dusan Tadic, Romeu and Ward-Prowse on the hour. The last was the best of the lot, given he was at full stretch from boots to fingertips.

Wayne Rooney dipped a shot over the bar in retaliation at the other end and showed occasional flashes of the gifts that came so easily to him for so long but now feel like flashbacks.

Juan Mata somehow contrived to sky one when Fraser Forster was grounded and the goal largely open.

Martial later rolled a third chance against the post before Romero rounded the match off with yet another save.

As he left the pitch he even drew a smile from Mourinho. A miracle worker, indeed.