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Michael Dawson netted the winner for the second week running, only this time it was at the right end from struggling Hull’s point of view.
Hull captain Dawson nodded in the second of two quickfire strikes just after the hour to atone for the own goal he scored at Watford eight days earlier, and provide a first league win for his team since August.
Just as in the early weeks of the season, Mike Phelan’s team had to overcome adversity to secure three points, with an unchanged team disrupted by the loss of two forwards to injury in the contest’s opening quarter.
But top scorer Robert Snodgrass emerged from the bench to cancel out Charlie Austin’s early penalty and then deliver the assist for Dawson.
Until that heady spell just after the hour, it appeared Hull were to be condemned to their seventh straight league defeat, and their worst run in 36 years.
But they somehow got their noses in front and then survived incessant Southampton pressure late on with Austin, an habitual thorn in their side, denied by a fine David Marshall save and Sam Clucas kicking off the line.
Hull began as the top-flight team with the fewest touches in the opposition’s penalty area and they had barely added to their tally of 114 when they lost both strikers to injury.
Seizing on a mistake by Southampton captain Jose Fonte, Abel Hernandez appeared to pull a groin in seeking a team-mate. He unsuccessfully attempted to run off the problem either side of Austin’s opening goal.
Then, Will Keane departed to an equally innocuous injury midway through the opening period, pulling up and clutching his left knee, chasing a ball over the top.
It summed up the downcast mood currently prevailing at the Yorkshire club.
Such was the apathy amongst another woeful attendance at the KCOM Stadium – defeat to Stoke last month attracted a top-flight low 18,522 – that it was hard to differentiate when the minute’s silence for Remembrance day ended and the match began.
Southampton’s travelling band provided the early atmosphere and they had reason to turn up the volume inside five minutes as full-back Maya Yoshida’s burst into the area was crudely interrupted by Curtis Davies’ trailing leg.
Austin, who agreed to join Hull in a £4.5million deal three years ago only for a medical to highlight a problem with his knee and scupper the deal, made it three goals in as many league visits since by sending David Marshall the wrong way from 12 yards.
It was the perfect start for Southampton, who have shown no adverse effects to competing on two fronts this season. In fact, Claude Puel was able to field his strongest possible XI, recalling five players rested for Thursday night’s win over Inter Milan.
Previously unbeaten on Sundays after European engagements, the visitors appeared in total command during the first half, with their England goalkeeper Fraser Forster going untested aside from a mishit toepoke from Ryan Mason.
And other than the latest chants against the Allam family ownership of the club, the only thing the home supporters got worked up about was a knee-high challenge on Mason that earned a booking when it could easily have resulted in a red card.
Indeed, Southampton’s domination intensified as the half-time whistle neared with Jordy Clasie twice going close – a lack of solid contact on a surge into the box and then a lack of direction on a stinging volley allowing Marshall to save on each occasion – before Austin was foiled at the near post by the Scotland goalkeeper.
When Virgil van Dijk looped a header onto the top of the goalframe six minutes after the re-start it appeared that a Southampton second was inevitable.
Yet the game was turned on its head in a two-minute spell just after the hour.
Sam Clucas created Hull’s first chance, working a one-two with Mason from a throw-in and delivering a low cross from the byline that the unmarked Snodgrass slammed home.
Then, with Southampton still regrouping at 1-1, Snodgrass delivered a deep free-kick that Dawson glanced beyond the giant Forster and into the top corner.
It took Hull’s points total into double figures but was not enough to haul them out of the relegation zone.
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