Southampton...0 Man United...2Just when it seemed Southampton might upset the Premiership order, and sneak one of the European places the rich clubs need, Francis Benali returned at left-back. Two goals in the first quarter, sourced down United's right, inflicted the upstarts' second home defeat running and gave Alex Ferguson's side an easy ride into tomorrow's game against Birmingham.
Geographically Southampton are as close to Europe as anyone in the top division. Graphically, when substitutes were called for, Paul Scholes replaced David Beckham, with Diego Forlan, Wes Brown and Phil Neville in waiting, and Kevin Davies came on from a bench completed by the last of Southampton's 16 men available. There is an ocean not a channel between Saints and the multi-millionaire clubs.
Southampton need strength in depth and the signing of David Prutton from Nottingham Forest and Danny Higginbotham, a United reject, from Derby for £4 million will help.All eyes, including those of the England coach, were on James Beattie. Last week Sven-Goran Eriksson told students at the Oxford Union the striker was in with a chance of a call-up. Oxford is not what it was - once they would have had a fellow Swede, Hans Blix - nor Beattie what he is cracked up to be. In this company he was a weapon of no destruction.
Far from single-handed he has carried Saints to their lofty position by his hot streak of goals, 16 out of their 28. The shoulders, fashioned in the swimming pools of Blackburn, are strong, as John O'Shea discovered early on when he was bustled aside, then left for speed, too. After that, though, Beattie was found wanting for service and ingenuity.
Both goals came against the flow, each owing most to the exquisite timing and control of Beckham's right foot. Last week the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, supposedly on a directive from Europe, advised that pigs should be given a football and chain, "manipulable materials", to enjoy with their snouts. Saints were prisoners of their own limitations but no pig or snout could have manipulated the ball more sweetly than that foot.
First he pulled down Silvestre's raking diagonal ball, dragged it away from Benali and the fast-arriving Chris Marsden and chipped it into the run of Gary Neville. Beattie must have envied van Nistelrooy's half-volley conversion of the cross.
Then Beckham threaded the ball 60 yards up the touchline, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer chased, collected and crossed, and Ryan Giggs scored less convincingly after his first shot rebounded from Paul Telfer. Thereafter United cruised to their first away clean sheet - "a barometer of our form," said Ferguson. If Saints do not win their FA Cup replay at Millwall on Wednesday they may feel a cyclone coming on.
Guardian Service
SOUTHAMPTON: Niemi (Jones 86), Telfer, Lundekvam, Michael Svensson, Benali, Fernandes, Oakley, Anders Svensson, Marsden, Beattie, Tessem (Davies 70). Subs Not Used: Williams, Arias, Ormerod. Booked: Anders Svensson, Benali.
MAN UTD: Barthez (Carroll 37), Gary Neville, O'Shea, Ferdinand, Silvestre, Beckham (Scholes 69), Veron, Keane, Giggs, van Nistelrooy (Forlan 88), Solskjaer. Subs Not Used: Phil Neville, Brown. Goals: van Nistelrooy 15, Giggs 22.
Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire)
