Manchester United 2 Southampton 0
These are still early days but already there is the unmistakable feeling Manchester United are on their way back and anxious to make up for lost time. José Mourinho could be seen saluting the crowd in triumph. Zlatan Ibrahimovic can look back on two more goals for his personal collection while Paul Pogba looked like he enjoyed his homecoming.
The only disappointment for Ibrahimovic was that he could not mark his first appearance at his new ground by heading in the chance, at 2-0, that would have meant taking the matchball home as a souvenir of his first hat-trick in English football.
That, however, was only a fleeting source of regret given the renewed sense of optimism inside this stadium. Pogba showed, in flashes, why United have made him the world’s most expensive player.
Ibrahimovic has scored three times in his first two Premier League games and Mourinho’s rebuilding has brought United to a point where Michael Carrick, Phil Jones and Memphis Depay were not even among the substitutes.
A new team are taking shape, featuring half a dozen six-footers, and perhaps it was just inevitable it would take a little time to get going. The partnership between Wayne Rooney and Ibrahimovic can still be better even if they did combine for the Swede’s goal.
Anthony Martial has started the season slowly and Pogba, as Mourinho explained, was not at the point of optimum fitness. They were also facing a Southampton side who had won 1-0 on their last two visits to Old Trafford, aiming to become the only side other than Manchester City to win here three times in a row.
Claude Puel’s team had an adventurous lineup with Nathan Redmond and Shane Long in attack and Dusan Tadic operating at the front of a midfield diamond.
Their preparations were disrupted by an early injury to their holding midfielder, Oriol Romeu, but they held their own during the moments when an early onslaught may have been anticipated from the home side and threatened sporadically through the linkup play between Redmond and Long.
Unfortunately for Southampton, English football’s top division now has a striker in its midst who is already showing a fine knack for chopping down to size some of the finest central defenders in the league.
Wes Morgan can testify for Ibrahimovic’s upper body strength, competitive instincts and prodigious heading ability after the winning goal in the Community Shield and now it was José Fonte’s turn to feel the force.
The cross came from the right, Antonio Valencia flicking the ball out to Rooney close to the corner flag, and Ibrahimovic, at 6ft 5in, was higher, stronger and more decisive in his leap than Fonte, directing another expertly angled header into the corner of Fraser Forster’s goal.
Ibrahimovic’s arms were out, peeling away on his victory run, and it was difficult not to imagine United’s supporters will be seeing a lot more of that celebration this season.
Old Trafford was in good voice, just as Mourinho had asked, but until that point there had not been a great to deal encourage the home crowd and the new manager was visibly irritated at one point by Martial’s failure to anticipate Ibrahimovic’s cross and run to the far post.
United did not have a great deal of pace in the forward positions, with Juan Mata operating to the right of Rooney and Ibrahimovic, and Martial has a habit sometimes of waiting for the ball rather than stretching defences by running out of possession.
There are, however, subtle changes that will please the home crowd. United moved the ball forward with the kind of urgency not always apparent under Louis van Gaal’s rigid tactics. Their full-backs were given more licence to go forward and it was from one of those attacking forays that Luke Shaw advanced to a position where Jordy Clasie, Romeu’s replacement, flicked out his hand to clip him for the penalty.
The touch was minimal and, if anything, a case could be made that Shaw accidentally tripped himself up. Ibrahimovic took the ball – no arguments about who was United’s new penalty-taker – and rifled his shot to Forster’s right as the goalkeeper went the other way.
Shortly before, Tadic had turned a header past David de Gea only for the goal to be disallowed because one of the assistant referees had seen a push on Eric Bailly.
The officials had that one right but Southampton will leave with grievances about the penalty decision and, at 2-0, the home side could start to relax and play with greater exuberance.
Martial was denied a goal by Virgil van Dijk’s saving tackle and soon afterwards the same United player took too long when he had another chance inside the penalty area.
Mourinho had said Pogba would not last the entire match but the £89m signing stayed on until the end and it was Mata, warmly embraced by his manager, who made way when Henrikh Mkhitaryan was brought on for the last quarter of an hour.
Ibrahimovic fluffed his header for a hat-trick and Pogba drilled a late chance but United had made it back-to-back victories and Old Trafford, once again, felt like a happy place.
Guardian services
