Southampton are up to third in the Premier League. Really.
Southampton vs. Hull City: Final score 4-1, Saints maul Tigers
Another great performance has the Saints two spots from the top of the table.
Mike Hewitt
The Saints cruised past Hull City, 4-1, on Saturday to jump idle Tottenham and Chelsea, who drew, in the table for third place. Now only Arsenal and Liverpool separate Southampton from the top of the table. It was a dominating performance by the Saints, who had a three-goal lead by halftime and overwhelmed the Tigers until the final whistle.
It took until the 16th minute for Southampton to go in front, but it wasn’t for lack of chances. They got multiple looks at goal early on, only to see them go by the wayside. That wouldn’t be the case when Rickie Lambert headed the ball back across goal for Morgan Schneiderlin. It was a great nod back across and Schneiderlin’s header was even better as he powered the ball into the net from six yards to give the Saints a 1-0 lead.
Lambert was back in the center of the action at the half-hour mark when he played Adam Lallana in with a beautiful pass, forcing Steve Harper off his line. The goalkeeper then fouled Lallana and the referee pointed to the spot. Lambert stepped to it and buried the penalty to double the Saints' advantage.
Seven minutes after drawing the penalty, Lalllana did the goal scoring himself with a gorgeous piece of play. He danced his way through a handful of would-be Hull defenders before slotting the ball home and Southampton were rolling.
Yannick Sagbo tried to bring Hull back into the match after the break when he got in behind the Southampton defense and finished coolly to make it 3-1, but the Tigers could never really grab hold of the match. Southampton were still creating all of the chances and, in the 88th minute, they found another goal through Steven Davis, who collected a cross, turned and fired past Harper to put a bow on a tidy win for the Saints that has them two places from the top of the table.
Southampton: Boruc, Clyne, Lovren, Fonte, Shaw, Schneiderlin, Rodriguez, Wanyama (Davis 63’), Ward-Prowse, Lallana (Cork 84’), Lambert (Osvaldo 76’).
Goals: Schneiderlin 16’, Lambert 30’, Lallana 37, Davis 88’.
Hull City: Harper, Rosenior, Figueroa, Davies, McShane, Elmohamady (Koren 45), Meyler (Graham 73’), Huddlestone, Livermore, Boyd (Quinn 80’), Sagbo.
Goals: Sagbo 55’.
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