Manchester Utd - 3 Southampton - 2 Anybody rummaging through the bins of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson's household this week is likely to find nothing more than letters of support. From his players, however, there were confusing signals from an entertaining if slightly dishevelled and eccentric match.
The simple truth from Saturday was they defended badly without the reassuring presence of Rio Ferdinand. Gordon Strachan's team played with such little trepidation that Ferguson's consternation about the erratic performances of Mikael Silvestre and Tim Howard, plus obvious signs of rustiness in Wes Brown, should not dilute his sense of satisfaction too much from overcoming such feisty opponents
Southampton's spiky attitude spilled over into the post-match analysis when, before a single question could be asked, Gordon Strachan noticed Chris Waddle loitering at the back of Old Trafford's pressroom and launched into the sort of diatribe only he can muster with such vigour.
"Hey Chris, you ever been a captain?" he hollered. "You toss a coin and get the choice to kick off or choose ends? Well, Roy Keane wins the toss, says the direction he wants to shoot and, guess what, the referee gives him the ball, too. That sums it up for me."
Barely pausing for breath, Strachan blissfully proceeded to slag off Graham Barber and his assistants - "wannabe celebrities" and "inadequate people" - for a good 10 minutes, his particular beef being that Ruud van Nistelrooy was a yard offside during the build-up to him scoring the winning goal in the 61st minute.
Southampton's most legitimate complaint, from what Glenn Hoddle, as only he can, described in the television studios as a "deflected match", was that Rory Delap's slight touch on Cristiano Ronaldo did not merit the free-kick from which Louis Saha scored via the head of Kevin Phillips.
Saha's display was full of penetration and pace, industry and invention, so it is a pity the Premiership's Dubious Goals Committee will probably decree it an own goal. What cannot be contested is the Frenchman's role in United's second, lashing a left-foot shot of such power it came back off Niemi for Paul Scholes to tuck in the rebound.
At 2-0 there have been numerous instances this season of, as Silvestre put it, United "going to sleep" but there was still a sense of perplexity when two firm shots from Kevin Phillips either side of half-time, the first taking a crucial deflection off Brett Ormerod, cancelled out their advantage.
Southampton might even have led 3-2 if Howard had not been quickly off his line to deny Ormerod. "At one stage we were looking at an incredible result," lamented Strachan.
Instead Van Nistelrooy benefited from a charitable linesman and Strachan was left to rage against perceived injustices.
