Saints 1-1 Man Utd: Goal Analysis

By Kieren Hassan, published on 23/08/21

{Uncaptioned images from the Man Utd official YouTube channel}

This weekend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team travelled away to Southampton for an afternoon kick off on the Sunday, the red’s were in good spirits as they had just come off of a heavy victory over bitter rivals Leeds United on the first day of the season. Southampton, a team that lost 3-1 to Everton in their opening fixture needed something from this game as a lot of people have been writing them off after the sale of their main goal scorer Danny Ings to Aston Villa & the previous 9-0 defeat to United in February.

United had most of the possession against the Saints with 64% to their 36% & United’s 520 passes to Southampton's 291, United had a passing accuracy of 79%, where as the Saints only had 69%. United had almost double the amount of shots with 15 to their 8 but could only land 4 on target with the Saints getting 3. Today’s game could’ve been put away with United having the chances to do so, but not being able to put the ball in the back of the net early on & then having to chase the game. An early free kick ended up with Harry Maguire sticking a toe out for it to awkwardly land on the bar, bounce out & Anthony Martial’s reactive header was kept out after being cleared off of the line.

Southampton 1 - 0 Manchester United

The 30th minute is when things changed & went in Southampton's way, other than set pieces with Southampton’s captain James Ward-Prowse stepping over them, the Saints didn’t really threaten that much, but that was about to change. Fred makes a pass to clear the danger from the Manchester United box to Bruno Fernandes (black line), after receiving the ball you could argue Bruno takes to long to do anything with the ball, but with his back to goal & any potential attacker near the half way line, what was he to do? With nothing on offer he gets closed down by Stephens (red arrow) who seems to barge Bruno off the ball as he goes for it, in my opinion it’s a foul but the referee didn’t give it, so play continues as Bruno lays on the floor. In hindsight it’s easy to find an option of what players could have done, but I believe the bottom left corner is key here (blue arrow) with Aaron Wan-Bissaka being at the edge of the box, by the time Bruno gets the ball he would have all of the space down the bottom to drive into & give Bruno an option to switch the play & catch Southampton out for a counter attack. Obviously this doesn’t happen & as I said it’s easy to say in hindsight, but that for me was the play to make by both parties (regardless of if you think it’s a foul or not).

With Bruno Fernandes now laying on the floor (black circle) Stephens has space to move & decide what to do with the ball, where he spots out Djenepo (blue circle) who’s now able to help in advancing the play to give Southampton a chance at the United goal.

Now this is only a small play but it’s very important in how the goal was created, with Djenepo playing the ball to Armstrong, who whilst Fred is trying to close all three players down, takes a touch to backheel it to Che Adams (black lines) giving him a bit of space & time to figure out what he’d like to do with it as nobody is tight to him.

Che Adams once receiving the ball dribbles it for a few meters & gets pushed inwards by Harry Maguire staying between his man and the goal (red line), but Maguire gets done by Adams making a lovely turn to give himself just enough space to get a shot off as Fred goes to block the shot, does get a block in but it’s only enough to send it to David De Gea’s left (black line) & past the keeper as the initial shot was going to his right & wide of the goal, therefore it’s classed as a Fred Own Goal.

Southampton 1 - 1 Manchester United

In the 55th minute was when Manchester United got back into the game, Mason Greenwood being the goal scorer after some brilliant play between Paul Pogba & Bruno Fernandes to set Greenwood up for a beautiful strike inside the box.

After a cross from Bruno Fernandes in which only a Saints defender getting a toe to it Paul Pogba chases the ball to just outside the 18 yard box, as he receives it two players are shown; Mason Greenwood (blue circle) & Bruno Fernandes (White circle). Paul starts to move inside to take on his man & as he does Bruno makes a run inside towards the other side of the six yard box.

Pogba plays the pass here, whilst Bruno (white circle) is still moving goin towards the corner of the six yard box to the left, Greenwood the goalscorer as well as Martial have barely moved if at all.

As Bruno stretches to receive the ball, Pogba also makes a move off the ball to move into the space (black circle), Bruno turns with the ball & plays the ball into the circle provided for Pogba to take a shot if possible.

Pogba realizing that the pass from Bruno was slightly too heavy stretches for the ball & can only manage to poke it on with his toes towards the space in front of Greenwood (black circle) for Greenwood to have his own chance at goal.

Mason gets his space and time to get a shot off & even though it is not the typical top finish from Mason, with all the defenders & keeper in front, Mason manages to get the shot off & the ball ends up in the back of the net (black circle) as the keeper anticipates Mason will shoot to his left, but is caught off guard & balance for the ball to hit the keepers leg & go through it into the goal to put United level.

United couldn’t then get a second & pick up the three points leaving it all square at the full time whistle. A little unlucky between the foul not being given before the Southampton goal & the huge deflection that is just a lottery of where it’ll end up this is a game that for the rest of the season United will be kicking themselves for not playing much better & receiving all three points.

The season still has 36 league games left for United to set themselves apart from the pack & put up a title challenge, so it’s not the time to get carried away with negatives, we have Raphael Varane & Jadon Sancho who will surely be coming into the starting XI in the next few weeks as well as Edison Cavani who will battle Mason Greenwood & Anthony Martial for that central role whilst helping the forward line once again this season with his experience. United fans, although doom and gloom after this result have a lot more to be optimistic about than most. Never mind that our manager who was once named as a PE Teacher is now among the top 10 shortlist for best managers in Europe.

Manchester United will face Wolves at the Molineux Stadium next Sunday & will need to turn things around before the October & November fixtures which will surely be tough on Solskjaer & his men.