Saints were again the architects of their own downfall as they gifted united a second goal to turn the tide in the game.

This was another tale of the luck not being with Saints as they initially took the game to United, but did not take their chances in the first half and paid the price.

It was a great opening for Saints, they took the game to the visitor with Mane and Pelle looking in fine form and when the Italian striker scored after 13 minutes Saints were well in command of the game, sadly though the referee and his officials weren't, it needed a strong referee and Mark Clattenburg seemed strangely reluctant to dish out a yellow card to stop persistent niggling fouls from United.

On 34 minutes the linesman got it wrong as the United equaliser was clearly offside, this was the sort of luck Saints are having this season.

Five minutes after the break though Saints could blame no one but themselves as Yoshida hit an horrendously short back pass that Martial latched on to for a lead that United did not deserve.

This seemed to knock a lot of fight out of Saints and we endured a spell of play were we barely saw the ball and the United third goal on 68 minutes was the culmination of 45 passes were Saints could not get near the ball, even the goal saw Saints deserted by luck, the initial shot hitting the post then going to the one place a United player was standing for the tap in.

But Saints regained their spirit for a rousing finale, David De Gea making a number of saves one of which was truly World class, he could not keep out another great header from Pelle though to reduce the arrears, but despite a bombardment of De Gea's goal it was too little too late in the final minutes.

Saints did not play badly in this game, at times they were excellent with Mane & Pelle especially taking the game to them, but gain it was a case of individual error, the inclusion of Yoshida at right back was strange, Soares is far more mobile and United did not offer real aerial threat up front, it was strange why we opted for the Japanese player ahead of the Portugese and ultimately this cost us at least a point.

Other than that it was Saints the more decisive, although United had the lion's share of possession they only had three shots on target and they all went in with the other 7 not testing Steklenburg in Saints goal, at the other end Saints had 15 shots with 8 on target and as mentioned De Gea made at least one World class save to claw out a Fonte header and several other fine saves that could have on another day gone in.

It as not to be our day and the season has not started as well as we would have hoped, however there is enough positives to be taken from this performance to suggest that we are still very capable of hitting the top ten this season, we just need to cut out these individual errors and lapses in concentration.

Photo: Action Images

geezershoong added 09:11 - Sep 21 Why oh why did we stop attacking the left flank? Why oh why is Yoshida allowed anywhere near the first team?
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Fordy added 09:13 - Sep 21 He played Yoshida because he was frightened of Soares' defensive frailties against Depay. But I would rather we were more positive at home. Yoshi isn't a right back, he is just about ok as a back up but shouldn't be first choice. Even on the first goal if he hadn't been ambling out so slowly the offside would have been more clear cut.
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saintsnutcase added 09:15 - Sep 21 I agree with most of what you say Nick. I would only add that I think this was Pelle's best ever Saints performance. He looked liked a real top Premiership striker and much more mobile than last season. Also the debate on Yoshida should now be closed. He tries hard but makes so many errors that cost matches. He should not be in the squad.
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L1minus10 added 09:28 - Sep 21 Have you ever seen Cedric give away a goal with a shocking back pass across his own penalty area straight to a striker? All I hear though is that Cedric wasn't picked because he's a bit suspect defensively. Time to rethink that one I think. Also, you never know, he might have put a cross or two in when we were chasing a goal.
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halftimeorange added 09:51 - Sep 21 This is the third or fourth time this term that RK has got his tactics wrong if you count the Europa Cup. Let's be honest, Saints made an average Man U team look good. After half an hour we defended deeper for no obvious reason - why didn't RK counter this? The partnership between Soares and Mane looked very productive against Norwich so why not try it against the flat-footed defence Man U presented? Shane Long sadly offered nothing when he came on and James W-P and Tadic faded after thirty minutes just like they did last season. I've always rated Yoshida as a trier but his latest lapse was one too many and, as many on this site have suggested, it's time Saints looked at him as a bit part player. Although it's early days a loss against Swansea will have some supporters looking for three clubs currently performing worse than us - and that could take some doing.

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SanMarco added 10:25 - Sep 21 Why did we sign Cedric if he is suspect as a defender. Yes sign a centre forward who is suspect as a defender but not a defender. Also he would have to be very suspect as a defender to be worse than Yoshida. I thought all the changes of the last two years came to haunt us yesterday. Whether the team overall is stronger or weaker will come out over the whole season but yesterday once things went wrong we looked like a bunch of strangers. The depressing thing is that we will recover this season and finish strongly - but once we do all our best players will leave...

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DPeps added 10:56 - Sep 21 You can't account for individual errors, although I agree with others that Yoshida has used up all his chances. What I found most worrying was our reaction after conceding the first. We looked crumbly and, against a better side, would have lost by 4 or 5. The Everton game was the same. I hope it's just players not clicking yet. We need to get back to the pressing game that has worked so well over the last few seasons and in the first 30 mins on sunday

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saintmark1976 added 11:24 - Sep 21 Good points well made SanMarco. Although I am not so sure that there is a lot about at present to indicate a strong finish. If you look at our record over the last twelve Premiership games we have obtained only ten points out of a possible thirty six which is relegation form. With the three promoted teams making decent starts this season the teams in the bottom part of the league look evenly matched to me, apart perhaps for Sunderland and Newcastle. I truly wonder whether the way we currently approach matches is still being influenced by our form up to just after Christmas last season when we could take the game to every team and expect to win.The difference now is that we have arguably lost our best three players to Liverpool, Man Untd and Spurs and have not replaced them adequately. Is it now the time to accept that those days are over and play a more defensive tighter formation and make the opposition scrap for the points rather than us playing so open as we did against Everton and again yesterday? Yes, it may not be so good to watch but sometimes you have to accept that circumstances change and react accordingly.

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stmichael added 11:33 - Sep 21 MAN U have been defensively excellent this season but yesterday we scored 2 , hit the post and forced De Gea into 2 world class saves. We could easily have scored 5. We were wronged by the officials and gifted them their 2nd and our manager made errors on the day too.. Put it to bed take the positives of which there were many and move on. OH and don't ever play Yoshida at full back again.

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TissLeGod added 13:13 - Sep 21 Agree with everyone here that surely that's curtains for Yoshi - otherwise RK is loosing the plot. Agree Cedric should play and build up a relationship - otherwise look for someone else in the youth squad. The goalkeeper is also suspect - what is he doing - his positioning is poor and most teams are scoring easily against him - don't rate him - where is Gazza? Plus stats were against us and we rarely beat Manure at home (even when they are not exactly that great these days) so wrote it off. Have to beat Swansea otherwise I fear for this season. The only positive is Manure probably weren't impressed by anyone in our squad to get the chequebook out in January.

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bstokesaint added 13:14 - Sep 21 I agree Michael. We can't afford too dwell on what could have been so different, but for a bit of luck. We'll be fine.
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TeamCortese added 15:36 - Sep 21 I agree with most of the above. We need to move on. Man Utd are a decent team and we should not be ashamed of our loss. More generally if we are to progress as a club we need to stop selling our key players. The board need to send a message of ambition that will keep the squad together. That's why Cortese had such loyalty from the players. He may not have been perfect but he sold the project to the player and they believed in it. I don't feel that's the case at the moment. There isn't enough unity with squad. It feels very different atm.

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BoondockSaint added 16:13 - Sep 21 As many times before, we took our foot off an opponent's neck and paid for it. Yeah, officials were bad, but at least they gave us 5 minutes of "Fergie Time". I understand we were booting the ball up to Pelle and it worked (while we did it), but what the hell were we doing passing back to the keeper with opposing players in the area? A least five or six times I thought he was going to do a Boruc!. Tip of the hat for sportsmanship to Martial. I try not to be negative and root for players to improve, but that's it for Yoshida as a starter. He's not Premier material. That goes for Shane Long too. Did you hear the fearful intake of breath from the ManU supporters when he came on? Me neither....

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jonrog added 14:32 - Sep 22 Cedric - I really do not understand why we would buy a full back in the close season who is not going to be first choice (Not that I think he should not be getting a run in the team). It's like buying a new car and then thinking the old one is better
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