MANCHESTER UNITED were facing the embarrassment of losing four straight home games in the top flight for the first time in almost a century.

And this would have been the lowest of all — against a Southampton team with the worst record at this stage of the season in Prem history.

Amad Diallo of Manchester United celebrates with the match ball and Player of the Match trophy.Manuel Ugarte’s first-half own goal had left Ruben Amorim starting at yet another disastrous defeat in what has been an awful season.

But Amad — who has scored huge goals at both Manchester City and Liverpool in recent weeks — grabbed an incredible 12-minute hat-trick to spare United’s blushes.

The first came eight minutes from time. And then as the clock ticked round to 90, the Ivorian latched on to a clever pass from sub Christian Eriksen to volley his team ahead.

There was still time for him to pounce on a defensive mix-up to complete his hat-trick in injury time.

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ANT FOR YOU Antony’s horror Man Utd career gets even worse with ‘miss of the season’Amad signed a new £90,000-per-week deal earlier this month — and he pretty much repaid it all in those minutes.

Amorim had said he would learn more about his team in this game than he did in the draws at Liverpool and Arsenal — but what did this tell him exactly?

United’s last home game here included a shambolic first half against Newcastle in the final days of 2024.

That meant they had lost three straight home games in the league for the first time in 45 years.

But since then they have turned in encouraging displays at the Emirates and Anfield to at least give their fans some cause for optimism.

Yet they still started the night 15th in the table — and new boss Amorim had won just two of his first nine league matches in charge.

And they started like it, too, against a team who are rock bottom and, statistically, have the worst record after 20 games of a season in Premier League history with just six points.

What’s more, they had only scored 12 goals before this game in what has been a bleak campaign for everyone at St Mary’s.

Yet, amazingly, it was Saints who looked more confident early on — despite losing all three of their Prem matches since Ivan Juric took charge just before Christmas.

Ghanaian forward Kamaldeen Sulemana wriggled into the box and fired a low shot that was pushed away by Andre Onana.

Then Mateus Fernandes was allowed to carry the ball forward but his low shot lacked conviction and was never going to trouble the United keeper.

While United had been second best, they should have gone ahead midway through the first half as Rasmus Hojlund got away down the left.