Manchester United already regaining swagger under Jose Mourinho

It is a long way up from Southampton on a Friday night. Especially when the last train from Manchester Piccadilly back south leaves soon after the second half has got underway at Old Trafford. But, never mind the convenience of the match-going supporter (when has that ever entered the consideration of the Premier League fixture computer?) Friday night football is now something we will all have to get used to.

The one night that used to be free of the game in the week has now been colonised in the urgent ambition to squeeze every last drop of finance from the game.

Never mind the kick-off time, for those Manchester United fans turning up to watch the evening action this week this will be a telling moment. And not simply because it will afford the first opportunity to watch Paul Pogba in a red shirt since he was a gangly teenager back in 2011.

No, this will be the first proper identifier of whether anything has fundamentally changed. Because last season, Southampton won at Old Trafford. And it was a victory that marked what seemed like Groundhog Day at the Theatre of Yawns. If this was not the nadir of Louis van Gaal’s reign at the club, it was pretty close. Boy was it a miserable, joyless, fun-free afternoon. For the 11th home game in succession, the score at half time was 0-0.

Featuring not a single moment that might encourage the 75,408 supporters to the edge of their seats, it was 45 minutes as poor as any in that wretchedly uninspired United season. About the only thing the home fans had to cheer was when Southampton’s keeper Fraser Forster hoofed a goal kick into touch. It had come to this: the place that once rang to the exploits of Best, Cantona and Van Nistelrooy reduced to seeking comfort from an opponent’s error.

In the absence of anything approaching a goal threat from the home side, Charlie Austin eventually showed them how to do it with a thumping header for the visitors three minutes from time. Not that it made any difference to United’s game plan. There was no rush forward in pursuit of the equalising goal, no chuck-the-kitchen-sink-at-it attempt to reverse the deficit in what used, in the fond distance, to be known as Fergie Time. The truth was, as balls were swung balefully in the direction of Chris Smalling, acting as emergency centre forward in the absence of anyone else, it was clear they wouldn’t have scored had there been an hour left.

The most telling moment, the moment that served as a visual indictment of United’s play, though, had occurred long before the inevitable end result was confirmed. It came as early as the 25th minute, when Jesse Lingard, seemingly on the point of breaking away after a Southampton corner had been cleared, instead checked and passed backwards. His failure to run forward in the manner of Giggs, Ronaldo, Best, and Coppell, a manner that was once commonplace at Old Trafford, was typical of the cowed, ambitionless, risk-free grind of the Van Gaal era.

And it is such woeful inadequacy that those of United persuasion heading out this Friday night want to see addressed. It is not too much to ask for: what they want is a little entertainment in return for the substantial financial investment. They want to see players tear forward on the breakaway. Not check back under instruction from the control freak in the dug out.

Soon after he started working with them, Jose Mourinho said he inherited a United squad stripped of confidence, stripped of any sense of adventure. Albeit Mourinho is a manager who is never embarrassed about lambasting the reputation of those who have worked in clubs before he arrived, this appears a criticism of what Van Gaal did that was borne out by the briefest of observation. Given what had happened last season it was really no surprise the players were no longer bouncing.

The truth is it might take some time to expunge the caution that crippled them for so long. Against Bournemouth in United’s season-opener last weekend, the manager was largely working with the same group of players as Van Gaal did. Pogba was suspended so didn’t play; only two newcomers – Eric Bailly and Zlatan Ibrahimovic – started the game; Henrikh Mkhitaryan came on as a late sub.

Indeed, Mourinho’s United spent the first half at the Vitality Stadium largely playing like Van Gaal’s United had: cautious, risk-averse, their principal determination to avoid defeat rather than swagger to victory. Nor with Wayne Rooney, Marouane Fellaini, Juan Mata and Ibrahimovic making up the majority of the front six, were they a side over-endowed with sheer blistering pace.

But where the dismayed United supporter will have seen the first flourishing of seeds of hope was in the second half. Mata’s opening goal seemed to spread confidence through the side like an infection. And the sight of Ibrahimovic’s preening self-satisfaction after he scored gave a huge signal that a swagger might be about to return.

It will not be easy, however. There will inevitably be set-backs, draw-backs and what might be best described as bore-backs. But the truth is if there is any man who knows what he is doing when it comes to transforming a dressing room’s sense of itself it is Mourinho. Friday nights or not, if he gets that right at Old Trafford, there could be some long journeys home for visiting fans this season.