There may have been a moment, after referee Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot, when Wayne Rooney fondly imagined he might still be Manchester United's penalty taker. He eyed the target happily. Here we go. Game over. Manchester United goal No 247, coming right up.
And then a giant man with a top-knot calmly collected the ball and placed it on the penalty spot. Rooney lives in Zlatan's world now. And in Zlatan's world only one man gets to take the penalties. Here's a clue: it's not Wayne Rooney.
So Zlatan Ibrahimovic stepped up and stuck the ball, smartly, low to Fraser Forster's right. It was his second goal of the night and Manchester United were 2-0 up. Meaning all was right in Zlatan's world.
What an impact he has made at this club. That is four goals in three games, including the Community Shield, but even without them, his huge presence alone would have changed the dynamic. He is what Rooney has needed for several years now; a proper goalscoring foil. A partner who wants to take responsibility, to shoulder as much as share the load.
Ibrahimovic's first goal was a header from a quite magnificent cross by Rooney – even if he was given too much room to deliver it by Steven Davis – and while the pair keep harmonising like this, United will in all likelihood remain the team to beat in the Premier League title race.
So Rooney won't have minded his demotion, whether he was forewarned or not. This is perhaps the Manchester United team he had in mind when he went to Sir Alex Ferguson and rather impertinently asked about transfer policy. At one stage, Rooney found Juan Mata whose ball reached Ibrahimovic teeing up a shot for Paul Pogba, that was eventually saved. Rooney, Mata, Ibrahimovic, Pogba: that is some roll call. That is how a Manchester United build-up should sound.
Think back to 2008: Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Paul Scholes. This is a club that used to send some of the greatest talent in Europe into battle, but had lately been reduced to playing Ashley Young as a centre-forward. In one summer, Mourinho has started aiming for the stars again; aiming for exactly where Manchester United should be.
And, yes, it is only two games, and there are tougher opponents out there than Bournemouth and Southampton. But Southampton did finish sixth last season, just a place behind United. They are in the same European competition, the Europa League, entering at the same stage – and they won 1-0 on their last two visits to Old Trafford.
So this was a return to the natural order. Southampton did not play badly, but never looked like winning. They had 10 shots at the United goal but forced a single save from David De Gea – and an easy one at that – and capitulated in the second-half by conceding a foolish penalty that as good as ended the game.
Jordy Clasie's challenge on Luke Shaw was rash and unnecessary and effectively locked Southampton out of the game. Mourinho is not one to take chances with his substitutions. United have scored five goals in their first two league fixtures, but Marcus Rashford has not come off the bench either time. Maybe he will if United are chasing; but they chase much on this form.
When leading, Mourinho's style is to shore up, to guarantee. So he took off Anthony Martial and Rooney, but on came a midfield player in Ander Herrera, and a central defender, Chris Smalling. Marouane Fellaini also attracted a few unmistakeable gestures for straying too far from his defensive position. The clean sheet will please Mourinho almost as much as the goals – so, too, the performance of Eric Bailly, who was excellent again at centre-back.
Of course, all eyes were on world record signing Pogba, making his debut after an £89m transfer from Juventus. Mourinho said that he didn't expect Pogba to beat five people with his first touch, although one imagines any manoeuvre would have been preferable to what unfolded mere seconds into the game. It wasn' t quite an air shot, but it was pretty close. Pogba got just enough on the ball to divert it into the path of a Southampton man, and send United's opponents away. The break came to nothing but, even so, it was a rather inauspicious start. Happily, it was an aberration rather than the standard for the night.
Pogba's passing wasn't always exemplary, but that sometimes happens with a player who is involved as much as he is. No doubt wanting to make an impression, he was everywhere. Up in support of the forwards, back helping out Shaw; he is an imposing presence and exactly what Manchester United need – the sort of midfield powerhouse Arsenal once boasted in Patrick Vieira. On occasions, an opponent would think he had him, only to be bundled off the bar, run over by a human combine harvester of arms and legs.
It was March 18, 2012, when Pogba last played for Manchester United – a 5-0 win over Wolves, 1,616 days ago. He came on as a 57th minute substitute for Michael Carrick with the score at 4-0. It is fair to say the player who has returned is unrecognisable – not in ability, necessarily, but in confidence and impact.
In the 29th minute, an exquisitely-weighted chip to Mata almost delivered the breakthrough, the ball headed on to Ibrahimovic whose overhead kick travelled wide. What a start to his Old Trafford career that would have been.
Instead, he had to wait until nine minutes before half-time, rising to the occasion like a true star, and bonded to the home crowd, in an instant. Claude Puel, Southampton's manager, must be sincerely sick of the sight of Ibrahimovic by now. He faced him seven times as Nice manager and in that run Ibrahimovic scored 11 goals for Paris Saint-Germain. Adding insult to injury, in the only game of the seven in which he didn't score, it was his touch that forced a Nice player to put through his net.
Yet a share of Friday night's spoils, at least, must go to Rooney for the cross. It is hard to imagine Old Trafford will see a better one all season. Rooney chased the ball out to the right, and had enough time to tee it up before firing it perfectly onto Ibrahimovic's head. It was almost a corner; and to think Rooney was denied the chance to take them for England this summer. It takes nothing away from Ibrahimovic to say it would not have required one of the world's greatest strikers to make good on a ball like that.
It was almost retro, a throwback to the days when wingers could all put in crosses, before a good delivery was not one that hit the first man and went for a corner. Even so it still had to be converted and once it was in Ibrahimovic's orbit, there was only one candidate. Pogba was lurking, he almost hampered his team-mate's run, but never got a look in.
Neither did Forster. And neither will many of United's rivals unless they are prepared to hit the ground running like this, too. Just two games in, but it does look rather ominous.
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