By ANDREW DILLON
ROBIN VAN PERSIE struck a stunning hat-trick to rescue Manchester United — then apologised for his spot-kick cock-up.
The £24million striker’s injury-time winner capped a dramatic United comeback. He has now scored four goals from two starts but is more worried about his second-half penalty miss when his team was trailing.
Van Persie said: “My hat-trick means three points and a little headache. I don’t know what I was thinking with the penalty.
“I wanted to hit it hard like I always do — but in the last second I just changed somehow. It wasn’t good enough.
“It was a bit of a down, I’m disappointed about it. I ask a certain standard from my game.
“When you’re 2-1 down, you can’t take a penalty like that. It is me to blame. I’ll have to work on it. Afterwards we were a bit lucky with the 2-2 and then at the end that dramatic 3-2.”
It was Alex Ferguson’s 1,000th game in charge and they were losing when United were awarded the penalty in the 67th minute, after RVP was cut down by Saints defender Jos Hooiveld.
But the normally ice-cool Dutchman suffered a rush of blood in his run-up and allowed keeper Kelvin Davis to make the save.
Southampton went ahead through Ricky Lambert in the 16th minute only for RVP to equalise seven minutes later.
Morgan Schneiderling headed newly-promoted Southampton back ahead on 55 minutes before Van Persie came up with his spot-kick blunder.
He made amends with a second leveller three minutes from time before grabbing the match-winner.
Van Persie reckoned his headed goal in the 92nd minute was the pick — and it was also his 100th Premier League goal.
He said: “I didn’t know that. I’ve been here only for two weeks now but I feel very welcome. I have to thank everyone, it’s a great club, everyone has been very helpful.”
