Hull 2 - 1 SouthamptonRobert Snodgrass inspires Hull City to comeback win against Southampton
Home team scorersRobert Snodgrass 61
Michael Dawson 63
Away team scorersCharlie Austin 6 Pen
It is no exaggeration to say that, without Robert Snodgrass, Hull City would have surrendered to a seventh straight Premier League defeat.
Instead, the richly gifted, and grimly determined, Scotland winger proved his fitness for the impending meeting with England by stepping off the bench and offering Mike Phelan’s hitherto apparently lost side a potentially season-changing top-tier lifeline.
By extending his left foot to shoot a beautifully assured equaliser and then providing the perfectly weighted free-kick from which Michael Dawson secured Hull’s first League victory since August, Snodgrass utterly transformed a contest an initially vastly superior Southampton should have won by a country mile.
Played out against a soundtrack of “Allams out” from those Hull City fans who had bothered to turn up at a sparsely populated stadium, the first half was embarrassingly one-sided. For prolonged periods, Southampton appeared to have arrived from a different stratosphere with their slick pass and move, possession-monopolising game proving virtually impossible for Phelan’s players to second-guess.
Puel’s side assumed an early lead after Curtis Davies needlessly hauled down Maya Yoshida in the area and Charlie Austin sent David Marshall the wrong way from the penalty spot. It was Austin’s fifth goal in seven games and eighth of the season - how come so many managers, for so long, kept muttering that he was “not a Premier League class striker.”?
Poor Phelan would surely simply be content to have a full complement of reasonably competent forwards. Hull’s manager is certainly not having much luck in that department. Accordingly, no sooner had Abel Hernández suddenly pulled up with an injury and hobbled off, to be replaced by Dieumerci Mbokani, than Will Keane sustained serious looking knee damage.
Again, there was no contact with a Southampton player but Keane fell awkwardly and was helped off looking extremely upset. On came Snodgrass desperate to prove his fitness in time to start for Scotland against England. It was to prove a game-changing switch.
The winger is Phelan’s most gifted individual and his arrival perked up Hull a little bit as he began exposing Ryan Bertrand’s limitations. It was a grey, wet, chilly, windy November day on Humberside – so raw indeed that anyone who neglected to wear gloves would quickly discover they had made a major tactical error – but, soon after Snodgrass’s introduction, Phelan’s horizon briefly brightened appreciably.
When Dusan Tadic launched himself into an awful, horribly high and late challenge on Ryan Mason, it seemed inevitable that he would be sent off. Executed studs up and knee level it looked a straight red card but, instead, incredibly, the referee, Graham Scott, let Tadic off with a yellow card and Hull realised they must continue contending with 11 men.
Mercifully, Mason was unhurt but, like his team-mates, he was struggling to man the barricades as Southampton’s passing dissected them with the almost inappropriate ruthlessness of a power tool slicing through souffle.
While Marshall saved well from Jordy Clasie and Austin but his opposite number, Fraser Forster – superbly protected by the excellent Virgil van Dijk, aka one of the Premier League’s very best centre-halves – was rarely called to arms.
There is still talk of the Allam family selling Hull to a Chinese consortium but if any remaining potential investors have not already taken fright the club’s price must dropping with every minute played. It will be a major surprise if there has been a change of ownership before the end of the season.
There are suggestions of a Chinese takeover at Southampton, too, which seems potentially worrying as the current model appears to be working rather well. Fresh from Thursday night’s Europa League win over Internazionale, Puel’s players showed few signs of fatigue.
Or at least not until Snodgrass began finding his range before turning the game on its head and transforming Hull’s fortunes. First, Sam Clucas did well to slip him a pass from the left and the winger responded with a sublime left-foot shot lashed inside a post.
Suitably inspired, Snodgrass then supplied a subtly curling free-kick from which Michael Dawson outleapt all-comers to head Hull into a most unlikely lead.
There was still time for Marshall to twice save well from Austin and again from Yoshida and Clucas to make a last-minute clearance off the line before Hull’s attentions began turning to their all-important visit to Sunderland on Saturday week.
Guardian