The Super Saint celebrated his return to the England squad with a storming perfo

The Super Saint celebrated his return to the England squad with a storming performance against Manchester United culminating in scoring a late winner

LION OF THE WEEKEND - JAMES BEATTIE

"A constant menace" - BBC News

"Deserved the goal he scored" - Gordon Strachan

"I am lethal from that sort of range!" - James Beattie

Sven-Goran Eriksson was among the St Mary's crowd to see a scintillating individual display from James Beattie against Manchester United.

Not only did Beattie score an 88th minute winner for Southampton, but his all-round display frightened the life out of Mikael Silvestre and the rest of the United defenders.

No surprise then that Beattie is named in the England squad to face Macedonia and Liechtenstein in the next two Euro 2004 qualifiers.

Beattie's physical power, aerial ability and hard graft were a constant threat and the goal arrived two minutes from the end.

Graeme Le Saux's corner was missed by Tim Howard and Beattie was in the right place to head in from a couple of yards.

Before then, Beattie had set up chances for Kevin Phillips and Neil McCann and his low shot across the face of goal only needed the barest of touches to lead to a goal.

Beattie is one of only four strikers involved for the next two internationals alongside Michael Owen, Emile Heskey and Wayne Rooney.

On this showing he fully deserves his place among the strike elite.

LION OF THE WEEKEND - WEEKLY AWARDS

James Beattie 1
David Beckham 1
Jermain Defoe 1
Frank Lampard 1
Wayne Rooney 1

By Joe Bernstein

TheFA.com will announce their Lion of the Weekend every Monday. A Lion of the Season award will be announced in May based on the number of weekly nominations