Report: Southampton 0 Manchester United 1

Romelu Lukaku's first-half strike was enough to claim the away win for the Reds, who remain on the same points tally as rivals Manchester City after their 5-0 success at home to Crystal Palace.

The match kicked off in almost perfect conditions, as the Southampton sunshine beamed down on St Mary's. There were few chances in the opening quarter of an hour, a long-range attempt from Henrikh Mkhitaryan being the only effort on goal and it was comfortably gathered by Fraser Forster.

United broke the deadlock in the 20th minute when Ashley Young's left-wing cross found Lukaku, who was waiting in the six-yard box. Despite Forster producing a fine save from the striker's initial header, the ball dropped kindly to the Belgian and he dispatched his second chance impressively. 

Jose Mourinho's men took control of the match, moving the ball around quickly and, at half-time, the Reds looked good value for the lead.

Mauricio Pellegrino's side restarted the game well and their second-half improvement could have yielded an equaliser 12 minutes from time, if Oriol Romeu had been able to steer his close-range effort inside the far post instead of rolling it fractionally wide.

Southampton's main focus of attack was balls into the box for Shane Long, although a combination of Phil Jones and Eric Bailly remained resolute, managing to clear the danger well when required.

Substitute Ander Herrera had a fantastic opportunity to double the lead soon after coming on when Lukaku pulled the ball back for him inside the penalty area, but the Spaniard lifted it over the bar.

Although the Reds produced less of an attacking threat in the second half, a strong defensive display ensured that David De Gea kept another clean. However, it was still a tense finish for all concerned and Mourinho was sent to the stand by referee Craig Pawson in added time.

LINE-UPS AND STATS

Southampton: Forster; Cedric (Ward-Prowse 83), Hoedt, Yoshida, Bertrand; Lemina, Romeu; Tadic, Davis (C) (Gabbiadini 72), Redmond, Long (Austin 83).
Subs not used: McCarthy, Van Dijk, Pied, Hojbjerg.
Booked: Long

United: De Gea; Valencia (c), Bailly, Jones, Young; Matic, Fellaini; Mata (Herrera 62), Mkhitaryan (Smalling 75), Rashford (Blind 91), Lukaku.
Subs not used: Romero, Carrick, Lingard, Martial.
Booked: Young, Lukaku, Valencia, Herrera

MOURINHO'S REACTION

Speaking exclusively to MUTV, the boss said: "It's a difficult place to come, it's a good opponent without anything to lose, that tried in the last 35 minutes to be really offensive and try to fight for the rescue of a point. Our team had chances to kill the game.

"We had two enormous chances with Herrera and lukaku, we didn't. then we put ourselves in a position where we had to defend to keep the result, which we did extremely well, with a good keeper, with good defenders, with the substitution of smalling, so I am really happy."

MAN OF THE MATCH

Phil Jones won the fan-voted award on Twitter following another solid performance at centre-back and, in his post-match interview with MUTV, he paid tribute to the club's supporters who travelled down to Southampton...

.@PhilJones4 is today's #MUFC Man of the Match!

He's paid tribute to our travelling fans... pic.twitter.com/e28gXs39j8

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 23, 2017

TALKING POINTS

Lukaku keeps scoring: It has been a dream start for Romelu and nobody has scored more than his six Premier League goals in their first six starts– the only player to match that is Louis Saha. He is also averaging a goal a game from his eight starts in all competitions and has scored in all of his last four appearances.

Young thriving at full-back: Having come in at right-back for the Champions League win against FC Basel, Young has now played at left-back in the last two Premier League games and all three have ended with a clean sheet. Yes, he is playing in defence, but Ash has shown his attacking strengths by notching an assist in Europe and another for Lukaku in this 1-0 win at Southampton.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR UNITED?
United are in Champions League action on Wednesday with a trip to Russia to face CSKA Moscow. The Reds then round off a busy month with September's seventh match at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon at 15:00 BST.