‘Lukaku Stars Again’, Player Ratings: Southampton 0-1 Manchester United

Manchester United made it five wins out of six in the Premier League season after they clinched a hard-fought 1-0 win at Southampton on Saturday afternoon. Romelu Lukaku bagged the winner in the 20th minute, and this was sufficient to secure a vital away victory.

Here are our player ratings for the game…

David de Gea – The Spaniard was comfortable for a vast part of the game. Made a few neat saves which were straight at him. 6.5

Antonio Valencia – Probably not on his best performances. The right-back was troubled by Nathan Redmond on a number of occasions but looked more confident moving forward. 6.5
Eric Bailly  – The better of the two central defenders, Bailly looked assured against Shane Long at the back and managed to keep himself through a tough spell in the second half. 7

Phil Jones  – His passing was not the best on the day but put in another solid performance in a game where United had to dig in for the win. 6.5

Ashley Young  – Provided a splendid cross which led to Romelu Lukaku’s opener, but struggled on the left side in the latter stages as he has already been booked. 6

Nemanja Matic – Another commanding performance at the heart of the midfield. Matic kept the ball well during the first period, but could not replicate a similar showing in the latter half of the game. 7

Marouane Fellaini  – The Belgian could not match up to the pace of Southampton’s Mario Lemina but tried his best to make life difficult for his opponents. A decent game by his standards. 6

Juan Mata – Mata largely struggled to get into his passing game going apart from an early spell in the first period. Was substituted to bring Ander Herrera to the mix. 5.5

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 7 – The Armenian looked menacing whenever he was on a forward run and provided the perfect ball for Lukaku, who could not capitalise in the dying stages. 7

Marcus Rashford 6.5 – Another positive performance, Rashford kept on pushing on the left side of the attack but could have shown more in the final third. Nearly scored off a free-kick in the first-half. 6.5

Romelu Lukaku – The Belgian continues to hit the headlines with his scoring. Lukaku managed to overpower Wesley Hoedt to score the winner which was scored off a rebound after a Fraser Forster save. He now has eight goals in eight games for United. 7.5/10

Substitutes

Ander Herrera – Came on Juan Mata, missed a glorious chance to settle the scores. 6

Chris Smalling, Daley Blind – n/a