Manchester United welcomes Southampton to Old Trafford on Sunday in a Premier League matchup as they want to extend their winning streak at the stadium to five games overall.
Thursday’s first leg of their Europa League last-16 match saw Erik ten Hag’s team thrash Real Betis 4-1, while the Saints most recently defeated Leicester City 1-0 to get off the bottom of the standings.
Ayoze Perez’s well-executed equalizer before halftime followed Marcus Rashford’s 25th goal of the season, but Man United emerged in the second half as a different force as Antony, Bruno Fernandes, and Wout Weghorst gave the Red Devils a three-goal lead going into the second leg next weekend.
The EFL Cup champions can undoubtedly put any slender hopes of a Premier League title challenge to rest as last weekend’s humbling Merseyside battering left them 14 points behind leaders Arsenal in third place, despite having a game in hand. While Ten Hag’s crop has a firm foot in the quarterfinals of Europe’s secondary competition.
Selles has already experienced all the emotions that come with managing Southampton, from the highs of defeating Chelsea to the lows of losing to Leeds United and Grimsby Town, but there was positive energy at St Mary’s when Leicester came to town last weekend.
Southampton scored in the 35th minute through January signing Carlos Alcaraz before the Argentinean was forced off injured, dropping South-coast rivals Bournemouth to 20th position in the process. Southampton took full advantage of the Foxes’ inability to produce a single effort on target.
Yet Man United just needed a second-half goal from Fernandes to win 1-0 at St. Mary’s in August, extending the Red Devils’ unbeaten streak over the Saints to 14 games since Charlie Austin hushed the Old Trafford crowd in January 2016.