Five things we learnt as United defeat Southampton 3-1 thanks to electric star

Manchester United welcomed Southampton to Old Trafford this evening, looking for their first Premier League win since the 15th of December.

Andre Onana returned in goal after Altay Bayindir’s FA Cup heroics at the weekend and Leny Yoro was recalled back to the starting line up alongside Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez.

With the suspension of Diogo Dalot, Amad Diallo moved back into a wing-back spot and Noussair Mazraoui started on the left.

Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte started in the midfield, with Bruno Fernandes and Rasmus Hojlund ahead of them.

Despite huge speculation over his future, Alejandro Garnacho made a return to the starting eleven.

Here are five things we learnt from the match.

United’s corner nightmare goes on

After holding off Arsenal last weekend from set pieces, it seemed that United had turned a corner and were perhaps learning from their past errors.

That notion came crashing down in the 43rd minute when a Saints’ corner bounced in off Ugarte to give the visitors a deserved lead.

The goal was certainly misfortunate, as no Southampton player was close to the ball, but it once again exposed the soft underbelly that Amorim’s team still has.

Every team that plays United must massively fancy their chances of scoring from a cross or header and it is something that the club must put an end to if they are to continue to drag themselves up the table.

United’s attack is the bluntest in memory

Many fans turned up to Old Trafford expecting a strong start against the worst team in the league.

After 45 minutes, nobody would have believed it wasn’t Ruben Amorim’s side who were propping up the Premier League table.

Any chance they had was snatched, rushed and executed with very little confidence at all.

The attack not only lacked ideas and quality, but in possession they were equally as poor. Their play was characterised with lethargic effort and little to no movement off the ball.

For the first hour or more, on the odd occasion the Red Devils did get on the ball, they could hardly string more than a few passes together before carelessly gifting it back to their opposition.

Leny Yoro still has a steep learning curve

It seems harsh to single out the young Frenchman for criticism when many of his teammates did not cover themselves in much glory either today.

Nonetheless, Yoro was routinely beaten for pace and skill by Southampton’s winger Kamaldeen Sulemana.

The Ghanaian tormented the youngster down the left hand side of the pitch and could have easily scored a goal or two in the first half if he had kept his composure.

Sadly, the roasting continued in the second half as time and time again Sulemana proved too hot to handle for the United number 15.

The 19 year old has shown great potential and demonstrated tremendous mettle to step up and take a penalty in the shootout win versus Arsenal on Sunday. However, he still has a lot to learn before he is ready to start regularly in United’s backline.

Joshua Zirkzee deserves to start

The Dutchman was the hero on Sunday when he converted the winning penalty at the Emirates and many assumed he would get a chance to start tonight.

Instead Hojlund was given the nod and did little to impress during his time on the pitch.

While Zirkzee did not set the world on fire, he did combine play much better and was significantly more involved in the play.

The 23 year old also picked up an assist when he played in Amad, who fired in an equaliser for the home side.

The Dutchman may not be the most prolific but he certainly combines better with his fellow attackers and should get the chance from the start against Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday.

Amad is this season’s Kobbie Mainoo

Last season was lit up by Mainoo’s emergence as a star in the team and this year has equally been illuminated by the presence of the Ivorian.

He threatened his talent last season with a handful of vital goals but he has really come into his own this season.

The most impressive thing about the 22 year old is that he never hides and he keeps showing himself even in the toughest of moments.

Even when he was losing the ball and nothing would come off, he kept on running at the Southampton defence and got his reward with two late goals to give United a 2-1 lead.

Nothing summed up the youngster more than his hat-trick goal in the 93rd minute of play, he closed down the Southampton defender and tucked the ball into an empty net to round off a stunning 12 minutes of action.

Not many of this team clearly have the DNA of a Manchester United player, Amad definitely does.

Featured image by Carl Recine via Getty Images

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