MAN-UNITED'S FORTRESS IS CREAKING!

United have just three league wins from eight matches - and only one of those at home from four games. The fortress, if not crumbling, is creaking.

The more this goes on, the more David Moyes will have to continue answering questions about his predecessor with even Southampton manager, Mauricio Pocchetino, saying “it is not easy to be under the shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson” while strongly praising Moyes.

This always felt like a contest that would test credentials. Had United turned a corner in beating Sunderland and finding a new young hope in Adnan Januzaj, who provided a pre-match boost by signing a five-year contract? Were Southampton simply early flash-in-the-pan, high-pressing pretenders?

The answer to the first was no. Not yet anyway. The answer to the second was also, emphatically, no. As anguished as Moyes looked at the final whistle, knowing his tactics, and not least his substitutions in taking off Wayne Rooney for Chris Smalling while Javier Hernandez and Shinji Kagawa sat on the bench, would be questioned then Pochettino deserved praise.

The Argentine showed no emotion at Southampton’s late equaliser but he had stood by the touchline throughout this enthralling contest urging, coaxing, cajoling his team to remain committed to the high-tempo game that he is evangelical about. No one summed up that style more than Saints’ outstanding captain Adam Lallana, who got a final touch as Dejan Lovren stabbed the ball goalwards from a corner.

Jonny Evans and Smalling had gone missing and too many of United’s players failed to take responsibility. Chief among them was Marouane Fellaini, Moyes’s big summer signing and a lumbering disappointment, and Nani, who was awarded a five-year contract before the season started.

Januzaj was a shining exception - as was Rooney - while Robin van Persie can also be exempt and not just because he calmly stroked home United’s goal. But there was no hiding Moyes’s crestfallen demeanour. “We did not do well enough,” he admitted. “But we should have put the game to bed early on. There were pockets of play in which we were very good but it was a mixed performance. We have got to do better and make ourselves harder to score against.”

United are leaking goals with only three clean sheets this season and more concern over Nemanja Vidic’s absence, injured again, as Moyes juggles his resources ahead of the resumption of the Champions League campaign which might provide relief from their Premier League travails.