Three things that we learnt from Manchester United’s EFL Cup final success over Southampton

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Southampton have an incredible team spirit

The losing finalist isn’t normally remembered, but Southampton deserve a lot of credit for how they approached the game and their performance. They were excellent this afternoon and they were unlucky to lose the game inside ninety minutes. During the match, they had more possession and managed to get more shots in than their more illustrious opponents. Manolo Gabbiadini was excellent and scored two goals, with his second being a quality finish. The Saints managed to come from two goals down in a final and that takes an enormous amount of character. They should take confidence from their display and use it to climb the league table over the coming weeks.

The one criticism of Southampton is that they were too focused on scoring the winner that they left themselves open at the back. Ibrahimovic had acres of space to score the winner and that will be a huge disappointment for Claude Puel. It was clear that they had done a lot of tactical work to do well in the match and they were the better team on reflection of the play, but they switched off for 30 seconds and Manchester United took advantage. Although the coaching staff, players, and supporters will be gutted over the next few days, they need to take the positives from this game and target future success.