Manchester United midfield experiment failed in Southampton draw

If there was ever a match for Erik ten Hag to take a risk with his Manchester United line-up, it would have looked like bottom-placed Southampton at home.

Ten Hag appeared not only eager for United to make up for their Anfield annihilation a week earlier with a convincing win over the Saints, but he also looked desperate for a comfortable win as well.

They embraced the chance to play the relegation-threatened side by dropping the workman-like Fred in midfield and dropping Bruno Fernandes deeper so that they could have another attacker on the pitch.

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It's a tactic that made quite a lot of sense before a ball was kicked, but as soon as play began it looked like one that had enormously backfired.

While the addition of an extra attacking player in the shape of Jadon Sancho certainly gave United an additional threat going forward, the flip side was that they were much more open defensively and lacked cohesion with their positioning on the pitch.

For all of their struggles this season, Southampton's biggest strength has always been their midfield, and with the highly-rated Romeo Lavia alongside James Ward-Prowse they always had a strong basis from which to build.

It meant that rather than play to United's strengths, the makeshift midfield set-up actually played to Southampton's and gave them a real foothold in the game long before Casemiro's red card.

United were always going to regress following their reduction to 10-men, and naturally began to play more on the counter-attack as Southampton grew into the game.

The substitution of Scott McTominay for Wout Weghorst certainly gave United the physicality they had been missing in midfield prior to that, though the trade-off was a