Southampton had been on the slide since Danny Ings went off and their substitutes looked as green as grass coming on, which is a familiar lament of lesser placed sides in most leagues, including the Premier League.
A big 3 points for Ryan Mason in his first game in charge, but in truth this football was indistinguishable from José Mourinho’s.
This squad is tired and tactics count for nothing – if they did – then this game wouldn’t have been tedious to watch, which it was.
Saints went for it early on and rightly so, we looked off the pace, but we improved second half to control it as the game went on, encouraging.
There were one or two bright spots, the disallowed Son goal for instance, but still too little urgency and fluency. HK was badly missed.
Strange for us to boss a second half for once!