Scott McTominay hailed Manchester United for winning ugly at Southampton as they continued to recover from a poor start to the season.
Bruno Fernandes scored the only goal of the game as United picked up a 1-0 win on the south coast in a game that showed more guile than style.
It came on the back of a 2-1 victory over Liverpool last week as Erik Ten Hag’s tenure has seemingly sparked into life after the campaign began with defeats to Brighton and Brentford.
Togetherness and team spirit make the difference today 💪🏼United ❤️ pic.twitter.com/3cpJXtw2aP— Bruno Fernandes (@B_Fernandes8) August 27, 2022
McTominay, who kept his place in the starting XI despite new signing Casemiro being available, believes unity among the United squad has played an integral part in the turnaround.
“So far, we’re getting that reaction from the boys,” the Scotland midfielder told manutd.com.
“Everyone’s fighting and digging in for each other. And sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do, you’ve to win ugly.
“It takes a lot to come back from that (Brentford defeat) as a team and fight, and we just can’t let that dip now.
“We’re not getting carried away. We need to make sure that the fire we had for Liverpool and Southampton is still there, it can’t go out against Leicester or Arsenal.”
Southampton had won at Leicester last time out and were equal to their visitors for much of Saturday’s early kick-off at St Mary’s.
“We lost this game, but we gave everything,” said Moussa Djenepo.
“We were compact in the game, but this is football. We have to keep going with hard work to find a solution to be focused on the next game.
“We played good. We want to be there with a lot of communication, that’s why we are always here to help each other and to keep going.
“It’s football sometimes. The most important thing is to keep going and prepare game-by-game and to stay all together, to never give up and to keep going.”
