Saints punish toothless United with Austin's stunning winner
MANCHESTER, England --
That talk of a possible title challenge, made by Louis van Gaal in the euphoric aftermath of a victory at Anfield, looks pretty hollow now.
A goal seven minutes into Charlie Austin’s Southampton debut inflicted on United a second home defeat of the season and was greeted with a chorus of boos from the home fans. In a poor game, Southampton had been the better side and defeated the Red Devils 1-0 for which United could have no complaints.
There is a strange lethargy to United these days. It felt here as though the warm-up never quite came to an end that for 90 (very long) minutes everybody was just waiting for the nod to get started. Perhaps that’s to do with van Gaal’s obsession with his “process,” his insistence on the importance of maintaining possession. Perhaps it’s to do with a collective loss of confidence and a consequent reluctance to take risks.
Perhaps it’s simply that so many of United’s attacking players are young and therefore inconsistent but, whatever the reason, this is not a title-winning team. The gap to the top now ins 10 points and even if United was playing well, that would be an immense chasm to bridge. As it stands, United has won just two of its last ten games.
"I had a feeling they could score only from a set play. They did not create other chances," van Gaal told Sky Sports after he and his team were booed from the field. "Our defense in set plays was weaker because I changed [Marouane] Fellaini and after that I had to change [Matteo] Darmian. Every change was a weakness in defense in set plays."
Despite the failings of others, it may not even be a team which qualifies for the UEFA Champions League. Until the goal, the most exciting thing that happened at Old Trafford was when a mouse wandered onto the pitch in front of Ronald Koeman, capered about and then scuttled off past a bemused Maya Yoshida as he warmed up on the sidelines.
Southampton had played with a back three in each of its previous two league games so it wasn’t a huge surprise to see it do so again. Less expected was van Gaal’s decision to have United do the same, with Jesse Lingard operating as a wing-back on the right, leaving Matteo Darmian as the right-sided center-back. It had been after watching Koeman’s Feyenoord side in early 2014 that van Gaal, then Netherlands national coach, decided for the first time to switch to a back three for the World Cup.
There has been a deep antipathy between the two coaches since they worked together at Ajax in 2004 -- to the extent that van Gaal built a slightly larger house 100 yards down the road from Koeman’s in Vale do Lobo -- and yet their stories are intertwined. Whatever surprise there may have been at that tactical decision, it didn’t shock United into anything approaching life.
It’s remarkable how flat Old Trafford is these days, crowd and team feeding off each other’s vague dissatisfaction. In the first half, almost nothing happened. There were a couple of long-range United efforts that didn’t ever look like menacing the goal, there were a couple of stray Marouane Fellaini limbs that threatened to cause physical damage, then Sadio Mane fell over in front of goal after being set through by a Dusan Tadic flick. But essentially nothing happened.
By 39 minutes there were half-hearted boos. By 40 minutes they were rather louder. Which was at least some kind of response to Southampton fans asking “Is this a library?”. By 41 minutes United fans had broken into the chant that has become emblematic of this season urging their team to “Attack! Attack! Attack, attack, attack!” Perhaps the 55% possession United had before halftime satisfied van Gaal but it cant have delighted anybody else.
This was thoroughly tedious, not that was a great surprise: United hasn’t scored a first-half goal at home since September -- 956 minutes of nothing. Or, to out it another way, 10 of United’s last 11 home games have been 0-0 at halftime. The only player to score in a first half at Old Trafford in that time was Norwich City’s Cameron Jerome.
The introduction of Juan Mata for Marouane Fellaini at half-time made a significant difference. United suddenly had angles that weren’t elbows and knees. After early promise, though -- a Rooney pass that almost picked out his run -- that too fizzled to nothing, and the two real chances of the second half before the goal fell Southampton’s way, both stemming from set-plays from the right. First Victor Wanyama nodded just wide at the back post and then Shane Long glanced a header just over.
Austin came on for his Southampton debut after 79 minutes and Adnan Januzaj made his first United appearance since his return from a disappointing loan spell at Borussia Dortmund soon after. Both had a decisive impact. First Januzaj conceded a needless free-kick by the corner flag then, as James Ward-Prowse delivered the cross, Austin, a $5.7 million signing from QPR, rose unmarked to head past David de Gea and win the game.
"I wanted to win this game also and that's why I changed Borthwick-Jackson for Januzaj -- he could have scored also," van Gaal explained after the loss. "That is a risk you take. It was a poor game; we didn't create so much and our opponent didn't create so much. It was a 0-0 game but, at the end, we lost."