EPL: Van Persie's coldblooded finishing saves disjointed Manchester United

Given the pre-match narrative surrounding the two Netherlands natives, managers Ronald Koeman and Louis van Gaal, on the touchline, it was fitting that Monday night’s fixture was decided by a Dutchman on the pitch. Robin van Persie’s decisive double settled a match in which the victors’ display bore absolutely no resemblance to the Total Football which is synonymous with the aforementioned trio’s homeland. United, who revisited a 3-5-2 formation, were, quite frankly, seemingly speaking double Dutch for the entire 90 minutes at St Mary’s yet somehow extended their winning streak to five matches, their longest such run since Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season at the club. Managing to grind out a win following a performance without merit was one of Ferguson’s trademarks, and it looks like Van Gaal is making it one of his own at Old Trafford too. [caption id=“attachment_1841401” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] RVP celebrates his second goal. Getty Images[/caption] Van Gaal’s pre-match comments on TV - “I am always looking to the system they (the opponents) play, then we decide if we play a certain way or not” – suggested that the reversion to 3-5-2, after a successful spell with four at the back, was born out of design rather than necessity. Either way, the system certainly did not positively contribute to the accumulation of three more points, which were procured on the South Coast, in no small part, thanks to Van Persie’s coldblooded opportunism. Van Persie’s first, against the run of play and completely undeserved, was gifted by Saints skipper José Fonte, whose perilously short back-pass to Fraser Forster was capitalised on by the Dutchman in clinical fashion. The striker volleyed home his second with just under 20 minutes remaining by again steering the ball between Forster’s legs, this time after ghosting toward the back-post to meet Wayne Rooney’s searching free-kick after it had evaded everyone else inside the box. In the intervening period Southampton scored, while United exhibited the disjointedness and lack of cohesion which has appeared, sporadically, throughout Van Gaal’s nascent reign. Juan Mata, deployed at the apex of the five-man midfield, was virtually non-existent, as was any semblance of combination play in the attacking third. Marouane Fellaini, a man revitalised in recent weeks, was once again a figure of derision; his unfathomable loose square ball to Steven Davis, which precluded Graziano Pellè’s equaliser, the nadir of his evening. But it was the back three, which waved goodbye to both Chris Smalling and Paddy McNair during a turbulent first half, which was exposed once again. Southampton, unsurprisingly, looked to exploit it, with some degree of success; the half-time stats showed that the hosts had won twice as many aerial duels as the visitors, with McNair, in particular, tormented by Saints’ frontline. He was mercifully withdrawn before the break. And yet despite their inadequacies, United managed to mute the Southampton attack after the break and leave the bulk of the scrutiny and the questions for Koeman. The run of fixtures which has left Southampton nursing three straight defeats was always billed as their litmus test and so it has proven to be. And while Koeman’s men still boast the Premier League’s tightest defence, it is telling that they have conceded more goals (seven) in their past four league games than they had in their previous 11 (five). Quite simply, they have been made to pay, and dearly, by the division’s most ruthless big guns. United recorded only three attempts on goal – the lowest tally totalled by any Premier League side this season – and scored with two of them. Van Persie’s two touches inside the box ended up in the back of the net. The sensation that they have been punching above their weight is supported by the fact that four of their five Premier League defeats this term have come against teams (Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City) who occupied places in the top six for both the highest gross and highest net spends for the last summer transfer window. Unfortunately for Southampton, it appears as though the natural order is starting to prevail.