Southampton vs Manchester United Match Thread

Yep - it's becoming a surprise if Davis is anything less than excellent in a game.

 

Manchester United had six touches in the opposition box over the 90 minutes, 26 fewer than Southampton

A telling stat.

 

Not nearly as telling as the goals scored stat.

 

Blimey, several of you lot got quite disappointed from last night. 5th place, I'll take. All I'd like is to see the injured come back as soon as they can please. Including JayRod, who is angling for an extended contract, instead of wanting to go elsewhere, so I read.

I thought Claridge summed up last night quite well:

It was a really enjoyable game.

Have I seen Southampton play better? Yes. Did they dominate and deserve to win? Yes.
Manchester United got out of jail with two individual pieces of brilliance from Robin van Persie.
Are United going in the right direction? Performance wise, certainly not. I watched Manchester City here two weeks ago and there's no comparison between Manchester City and Manchester United.

 

Just imagine our full strength side with jayrod Pellè Tadic as the front 3. We will be immense when Rodriguez is fit and firing again.

 

Pretty much agree with all of that. I'm coming very close to forgiving Steve Claridge for everything, including the goal against us for Millwall in the Cup when he ran to the Northam and pointed to the name on his shirt.

 

Has everyone calmed down now? You lot were more depressing than the result...

 

shall we imagine osvaldo while we're at it?

and that new Aguero fella with the €40m price tag.

 

Koeman: "We lost to Manchester City because they were better than us, but we didn't lose to Arsenal and Manchester United because they're better than us."

 

It's more how easily we could have taken this game. Those stats just above just hit that home even harder. It's about an ambition - something you champion regularly - rather than 'taking' 5th. Many people would snap your hands off for 10th at the start of the season, though this doesn't mean I'd be happy with it coming from where we were. I'd have preferred to 'take' 3rd, which we could have with a bit less profligacy or a bit more defensive alertness. That's where the disappointment stems from. Think if anyone in that team, or on the board were happy with taking 5th, I'd be questioning their place in the team or at the helm. I'd hope they want the summit, even if it's not top of the league - but a personal best achievable summit; and last night, that would be sitting third.

 

grrr, yet again United get a lucky result, they didn't deserve 3 points against us, and with a better ref we would hve got a point, and they didn't deserve them against you. If you want a cup run you'll need to strengthen in Jan all over the pitch, or face dropping down the table as tiredness and injuries mount up, we had the same sort of choice last season with cup or relegation, not that I thought we had a chance against City. Teams like ours are stuck in a difficult position, do we go for a cup run or do we go for the riches of the Champions League, I don't think teams in our position can really go for both as we don't have the squad depth, although we are in a slightly better position than you on that score atm as we have all our injuries clearing up (I can't remember the last time we had a fully fit XI, I think it's happened twice in two seasons), but have Everton who always seem to beat us.
Good luck against Burnley, once again I shoud prefer a different result to keep the competition at bay so we have one less team between us and Europe, but the more of us up there come April the better, I'd like to see the fall-out on the North London boards if one of us made it over them

 

How not to be depressed. Just look at this:

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It's not the loss itself what's depressing, it the manner in which we lost. While notplaying at our best, we dominated the match in every way and got nothing out of it. It's cruel. And it almost never happens the other way around.

 

I thought most people were taking it quite well...though I haven't been on SaintsWeb. We played well, should have at least got a draw, but didn't. Next!

 

That's what I say....I'm not upset about it because it means we are still going in the right direction and will pick up points again. We've won a couple of games 1-0 when the other team might have hoped for a draw, especially Swansea, so things will go our way again.

 

I'm not too upset by things right now at all, but there is a bit too much spin going on here right now for my taste.

If we are better than Man U and Arsenal, then we are dropping points to lesser teams, which supposedly was something Saints do not do and was our greatest strength. And let's not forget Villa. That would give us 1 point out of 9 against three "lesser" teams.

And if you say this is just luck balancing out, then we we were never as good as we thought in the first place.

If we are not as good as Man U and Arsenal, then there are now at least four teams better than us in the League. Three of which are already ahead of us and Arsenal has more than enough time to make up three points.

1 point in 4 games is awful. There's nothing anyone can do about it now so there's no point in moaning and groaning. But I don't see the point in trying to spin this as not being bad. It's bad.

 

26 points in 15 games is alright though I'm not upset as we are having a great season. It's not bad unless you are shortsighted. That's like sitting by the pool on holiday after a week of glorious sunshine and complaining on the one day it rains.... the clouds are clearing.

 

Best results are:
1. Play well, win
2. Play badly, win
3. Play well, draw
4. Play badly, draw
5. Play well, lose
6. Play badly lose

Play well and lose is like the 5th option judged by points, but, sometimes if you are thinking long term, it could turn out better than that. Playing well and losing suggests you are not on the slide. Of course I am not happy, but reading that we played well gives me confidence.

 

I tend to think of a draw as 1/3 win 2/3 loss (i suppose my glass is more than half empty)

On that basis, playing well and losing vs playing badly and drawing becomes a much closer call.

 

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/11655124.Hesketh_s_pride_at_Premier_League_debut/?ref=mr

Hesketh speaking of the pride he felt on his PL debut. Said he was buzzing when Erwin gave him the nod and he was told to enjoy himself. Well done, youngster (just don't listen to people moaning because you aren't a completely polished PL player within seconds).

 

Bit frustrating that we've played well in the last two games and got nothing. In a way, it would have been better to lose comfortably.