Manchester United was able to take the 3 points in a very hard match against Southampton!

That was the best part!
Well, for me, the second best part.

The first 10 minutes were very good!

The ball was moving faster, players able to create space and to provide good passing options. 

But then, and we must understand that Football lives of these moments, a goal is not scored, a pass is intercepted, a good shot from the opponent or a counter sets the defensive line in “full attention mode”.

Then, for the rest of the first half, the team gets insecure.

There’s the feeling that the pressure is not perfect, the passing options are getting less and less, there’s no movements in behind the defense and it becomes an average performance.

On the other side, we have Southampton being very aggressive on the duels, with the forward players (20 – Sulemana; 33 – Dibling and 18 – Mateus Fernandes) causing multiple problems with their quality, speed and movements.

Very good from all of them, with Sulemana being very active on the left wing and creating consecutive situations of danger or, at least, disabling United players to attack freely without any concern of getting out of position for a potential counter.

It’s very important to have players that leave the other team concerned when attacking with fear to get harmed on a counter.

For me, another amazing surprise was to see the Portuguese Mateus Fernandes playing at these level in England, on his first Season in the League and coming from a very modest trajectory in Portugal, once he almost never played for Sporting CP (curiously, under Ruben Amorim) and was on loan last Season at GD Estoril Praia.

He’s been performing well in other matches, despite the lack of collective performances and results.

Finally, I really liked Dibling, the 18 years old, left footed forward. 

Good profile, able to run with the ball in high speed and intensity without losing the technical skills and dribbling!
Well done!

Honestly, this is the best thing about The Premier League!

Regardless if you play against Liverpool, Arsenal or, the last on the table, Southampton in this case, there’s always good talent, good players, amazing duels and no guarantees.

It’s tough, really tough!

Ruben must be in shock with the Premier League quality, at times.

We all know that there’s definitely a lot of quality there but, at times, he must be needing to remind himself that they were facing the last in the table and being manipulated with the ball, with the pressure, etc.

Coming from a completely different reality, where his Sporting CP was dominant and, even when going through challenges in the matches, there’s never a team that can consistently provide a face-to-face challenge as they do in England.

Not a chance!

But that’s the challenge and he’s learning, for sure.

That’s why he understands that the standards need to be higher than they’ve been.

The second half was different, with a few changes on the squad.

United finished te 2nd half with 67% of ball possession, 5 big chances to score (on the 1st half was 1 for each team) in a total of 13 shots.

At the start, Antony came on the field to replace a tired Mainoo, that wasn’t being able to add value to the team during the first half.

After a few minutes, Ugarte and Höjlund are also out, for Collyer and Zirkzee, respectively.

A surprise, at the moment and even for the players that weren’t happy about being replaced, specially when the team is losing and everyone wants to get the result around but, again, Ruben proved to be right and it clearly gave results.

The players that came in, without outstanding performances, gave another energy and power to the team.

Zirkzee was challenging every ball with the defenders, with better quality than Höjlund when being passed in the middle for combinations, rotating at times or delivering a clean ball to the midfielder in behind, but also trying to create some movements in behind the defensive line. It wasn’t perfect, naturally, but his confidence is in a different level and the defenders, already tired from facing Höjlund, struggled.

Collyer, on the other hand, had the hard task to replace the normally crucial Ugarte and was very energetic, always available to fight for the ball, win duels and with simple offensive principles.

Well done!

Maguire (the big surprise for not being in the starting XI) and Eriksen came later to the field, still with the dutchman having time to be decisive in passing Amad to the last goal.

By the end of the match, Ruben mentioned that the team was tired and were getting late to the duels and only when Southampton started to crash physically the space needed was there.

We have no data to match and fully understand what Ruben is saying, but from what I can observe, I think that the big difference is that, above having quality on the ball, he wants players fighting for every ball.

Simple as that.

And we can see that now.

With the qualities and challenges that each one has individually.

But everyone on the field is fighting for better outcomes.

For a brighter future.

A clear proof of what I’m saying is the number of last minute goals scored by this team, since Ruben joined (8 goals after minute 80 in 14 Matches).

Personally, reminds me the times of Sir Alex Ferguson, with the needed comparisons, naturally.

But that buzz of the last minutes that the big teams have.

Those minutes where the opponent gets in shock with what is happening around them, the stadium environment gets wild and out of control.

It’s like, one goals gets scored, the opposition gets in shock immediately and out of nowhere the home team is winning by advantage of 2 goals and the result is done.

Just like that!

That environment happens in Madrid, Lisbon, Munich, Liverpool, on the blue side of Manchester and, now, is back to the red side of Manchester!

This was the best thing for me!

The biggest concern is that the matches will soon be back to the 3/4 days distance between them and, without the super needed new signings, the teams is clearly very short in quality and, apparently, on the physical capabilities of facing the coming challenges.

2 weeks to go before the window closes and the hopes for great signings gets smaller every day!

Let’s wait and hope it all solves for the better!