Manchester United equalled the Premier League record for the biggest winning margin as they thrash nine-man Southampton 9-0 at Old Trafford.
Southampton’s 19-year-old midfielder Alexandre Jankewitz endured a nightmare first Premier League start, launching into a crazily high studs-up challenge on Scott McTominay in just the second minute of the match. Referee Mike Dean had no choice but to brandish an early red card, and United exploited their numerical advantage ruthlessly for the remaining 88 minutes.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side switched play relentlessly to stretch the outnumbered Saints throughout a one-sided first half, and the quality of the crosses was impressively high as Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Marcus Rashford put United two to the good.
An unfortunate own-goal from Jan Bednarek, turning Rashford’s cross into his own net from close range, made it three on 34 minutes, before the outstanding Edinson Cavani dispatched a fine header from Luke Shaw’s cross to make it 4-0 at the break. United could have also had a penalty shortly before half-time, only for VAR to adjudge that a foul on Cavani occurred fractionally outside the box and overruled the initial decision.
The half-time substitutions of Cavani and Shaw saw United lose some of their fluency, and Southampton thought they’d pull one back when Che Adams took advantage of slack defending to slot past David de Gea. But a VAR review saw the effort chalked off for offside and that was as good as it got for Southampton, as United added gloss to the scoreline in the second half.
Anthony Martial made it five on 69 minutes, taking down a clever chipped ball over the top from Bruno Fernandes before rifling a shot into the roof of the net. And McTominay bagged the sixth just two minutes later, drilling a low effort through a crowd of bodies from outside the box.
And Southampton’s torrid evening ended in fitting fashion when Jan Bednarek was shown a late red card for a foul on Martial inside the box, with Fernandes converting from the spot to make it seven.
Martial added a late eighth and Dan James made it 9-0 in injury-time.
The result is the third 9-0 in Premier League history, with Southampton also on the receiving end of the same scoreline against Leicester City last season and Manchester United setting the original record against Ipswich Town back in 1995.
