Manchester United 2-1 Southampton

When we put four past Fulham on Saturday you just knew that we wouldn't be getting another four easy goals like that in our next game. Sure enough we didn't, i'm not complaining, three points was the order of the day and we got them. What was worrying, was our poor second half performance, poor, in the sense that the visitors dominated the flow of the game. Tactically Southampton completely bossed things, even if they never really created the chances that domination might have warrented. Southampton copied the tactics of Bilbao and Wigan from last season of packing midfield and pressing hard up the field. And after watching that second half, it would seem neither the players nor our management have really learnt how to counter those tactics.
I'd hoped for a fast start to the game from us, well we got a fast start, unfortunately at the wrong end of the pitch. Carrick reprised his horror show against Bayern in the champions league a couple of years ago and De Gea wasn't fast enough to bail him out of trouble and we were one nil down. At least that galvanised us into action and it didn't take long for us to get back on level terms. Kagawa found Rooney and he took the opportunity presented to get back on the score sheet. We went on to dominate the first half, hitting the post before Rooney found the net for a second time.
Watching that first half it would have been hard to anticipate the complete turnaround that we saw in the second half. Even when we were on top in the first half Anderson had barely been in it, but when Southampton started pressing harder, he went from bad to worse. Carrick was taking Southampton's midfield on his own, as we couldn't get our wide men into the game. Welbeck did more good work in his own half during the second half, which wasn't really the point of having him in the team. The substitutions didn't really change anything, Smalling didn't have a great night, but Ferdinand wasn't really that much better when he came on. It will be nice to get Evans back as Vidic didn't really convince either. Anderson obviously had to be replaced, but pushing Jones into the centre didn't help us to retain the ball any better.
But we saw it through, that was the type of game that we might have dropped points in last season. The worry though, as this morning's papers have all stated is how our midfield and defence will stand up to the might of Madrid if we play like that. Lose either of Carrick and Cleverley for those two games and we will struggle to compete in the middle of the park. If we are to regain that league title, we won't be able to wrap those two in cotton wool for the rest of the season.