Southampton vs. Manchester United: 6 Things We Learned

Ex-Arsenal striker Robin van Persie scored a hat trick for Manchester United as the Red Devils snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to beat Southampton 3-2 at St. Mary's Sunday.

Van Persie's treble gave the striker the 100th Premier League goal of his career in Sir Alex Ferguson's 1,000th league match as a manager

The striker was the difference between a poor United team and an excellent Southampton side that will be wondering where it all went wrong and how they lost after dominating for almost the entire match.

Rickie Lambert and Morgan Schneiderlin headers twice gave the Saints a deserved lead, only for van Persie to peg them back each time before settling the game in injury time following Nani's late intervention.

Here, we look at six harsh lessons we learned from Southampton vs. Manchester United.

Southampton were superb Sunday, and they were beaten by a team that was smarter and cuter at the end.

The Saints took the game to Manchester United and were the better side for almost 85 minutes.

They are a workmanlike team that rely on honesty of effort and endeavour, and they showed the Red Devils the levels needed to succeed.

While United's quality won through in the end, a large number of United's XI should hold their heads in shame.

They let their manager down, they let their fans down and, most importantly, they let the great name of the club down through very shoddy performances that Sir Alex Ferguson is sure to have words about.

Rio Ferdinand was an absolute passenger at St. Mary's against Southampton.

The ex-England international is obviously not fit enough to play at the highest level. Sunday, against journeymen and players who were capable of little more than an honest shift, he looked distinctly out of his depth.

He strolled through the game, and his lack of partnership and communication with Nemanja Vidic and his full-backs almost cost United the full three points.

The pair struggled to deal with Kelvin Davis' long goal kicks and were pretty much camped on the edge of their own box for the entire game.

This had the knock-on effect of both full-backs, Patrice Evra and Rafael, being pulled out of position quite regularly. Their static midfield was given far too much space to cover against Southampton's workaholic side.

The end result was a 3-2 win, but United only have one man to thank for that.

Rickie Lambert terrorized the Manchester United defence.

He battered Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic into submission, and when Ferdinand decided to shirk his duty halfway through the first half—as he did throughout—Lambert capitalised with a well-taken goal.

Ferdinand allowed Lambert to peel off, and instead of following his man, he passed his responsibilities on to Rafael. The end result was the Saints taking the lead and Ferdinand taking the blame for the goal.

In terms of work-rate, Lambert was a colossus. If he was surrounded by some of the quality on offer in the United side, he would have had the hat trick instead of van Persie.

Sunday was almost the culmination of a career spent in the lower depths of English football. Having played across every single league on his travels to the top, Lambert has scored goals and has been a star.

He led the line, and in many ways, he dictated the entire match through patterns of play. On any other day, he would have walked off with the Man of the Match award. Alas, not today.

Robin van Persie scored his 100th Premier League goal in Sir Alex Ferguson's 1,000th Premier League match. The Scot has a lot to thank his summer signing for.

United were turgid throughout this game. However, the same cannot be said of Robin van Persie.

The Dutch international missed a penalty, but he managed to score a hat trick in only his second full game for United.

He was always a threat on goal, and his intelligent running and movement ensured that Southampton's defensive pairing of Jos Hooiveld and Jose Fonte were always on the back foot, even though the rest of their team was quite comfortable.

Four goals in three games is a good return in anyone's eyes. But the fact that Wayne Rooney will be out injured for at least four weeks means that he will have to keep this form up until October.

United fans won't be complaining if he does.

One can only feel sorry for Southampton and their likable manager Nigel Adkins. They really could not have picked a worse set of fixtures to start in their return to the Premier League.

First up were champions Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, which resulted in a harsh 3-2 defeat. Next were perennial strugglers Wigan, who were just too cute on the day and carved out a 2-0 win at St. Marys. Then we have Sunday's 3-2 loss, where Southampton snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

And next week they play Arsenal.

Southampton will struggle this season, but if they have any ambition of being involved in the Premier League in the future, they will have to start learning lessons very, very fast.

The EPL is built upon the foundations of crushed clubs with footballing morals like the Saints. And sooner rather than later, they are going to have to embrace the fact that sometimes you can't win games by being pretty.

Once in front, Southampton did not know how to kill the game, and as their energy became sapped, so too was their willpower to hold United at bay.

Lessons have to be learned and done so quickly.

Quite frankly, United will do nothing in the Champions League this year.

They have severe problems across the back and through midfield. Against a very average team, they were out-played, out-fought and, most importantly, out-thought.

The fact that they won the game will not be lost on Sir Alex Ferguson.

At the back: Ferdinand has lost his pace completely, Vidic is a yard slower on last year and Rafael is a liability at right-back, which leaves Patrice Evra as the only player capable of playing at the very highest level consistently.

In central midfield: Michael Carrick is a liability, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs' influence has waned completely and only Shinji Kagawa looks like he has the skill and personality to drive United forward. At the moment, even he is being crippled by the fact that he is settling in to a new team.

The days of United being automatically considered as Champions League contenders is gone. Sir Alex Ferguson must be thanking his lucky stars his team were given a relatively easy draw in the group stages yet again.