On the smallest events, history turns. Jan Bednarek collided with his own goalkeeper, and Mark Hughes brought on Manolo Gabbiadini.
It was not an obvious change, a striker for a defender, and a striker with one goal since October 15 at that. Maybe it is a change the manager wouldn’t have made had fate not intervened. Yet it changed the game, and the season almost certainly, for Southampton.
Gabbiadini scored, and Southampton won. Down went West Brom and with them, quite possibly, Swansea, unless they can claw a way out of the pit at Huddersfield’s expense.
Southampton, barring catastrophe — Huddersfield get a point from either Chelsea or Arsenal, Swansea win by five against Stoke, Southampton lose by five to Manchester City — look safe. They certainly celebrated that way at the end, players and staff in a dancing, buoyant pile-up on the side of the pitch, the sort of release that usually accompanies victory in a Champions League final, rather than the squeakiest of victories that doesn’t even leave survival guaranteed.
One can see why it will have mattered to Hughes, though, and it was about a lot more than a cancelled hotel room. He could have taken two teams down in one season. Stoke on Saturday, Southampton now. Instead, his reputation is being rebuilt.
The gamble in bringing him in to fight a raging fire paid off. He can move Southampton forward from here. He can start looking up. The bigger question is will the club have learned lessons? Will Southampton stop cashing their chips in every transfer window? They cannot risk another campaign like this, whatever the profit, surely. It was far too close for comfort.
Swansea probably had the better of it over 90 minutes, but Southampton are the better team. There were glimpses, only glimpses mind, of a reasonable side trying to break out from the incredible pressure.
Not European contenders, as they once hoped, but not a team who should be fighting for their lives in the final week, either. They need an overhaul and they need to keep their best talent. Hughes needs to persuade them to spend some of that Virgil van Dijk money — and spend it well.
Still, short term, this was a good night. Southampton got a break and it was enough. Bednarek was absolutely fuming at being required to come off in the 66th minute, a medic keeping a firm hand on his arm as he shook his head, argued and resisted.
The decision was already made on the touchline, though, Hughes using the opportunity to switch a back five to four and bring on Gabbiadini as support for Charlie Austin. Within minutes it paid off.
Southampton got a corner, won by Dusan Tadic, who also got his head to the ball when it was nodded back across goal. It fell to Austin, whose shot was well blocked by Lukasz Fabianski, but Gabbiadini reacted quickest to prod it over the line in front of a jubilant, and packed, away end.
Gabbiadini is often cited as evidence that Southampton’s famous recruitment department has lost its magic touch. He is seen as £15million wasted. Not if he saves the club six times that by keeping them up.
By contrast, the young man Swansea had hoped would provide their spark up front this season, Tammy Abraham, came on and had a header well saved by Alex McCarthy — as Championship oblivion beckoned. Tiny margins, tiny margins; it’s always the same at this stage of the season.
The reason Swansea are in trouble was obvious. The home team dominated much of the game, but the occasions Southampton got away were the best chances. Austin alone missed three. Hughes’ team sat deep initially and let Swansea have plenty of the ball, but they did little with it.
It was harum, it was scarum, it was off the cuff, balls lofted into the penalty area in the hope something might happen. Southampton, while very disappointing at first for a team supposedly coming here brimming with righteous indignation, did at least look as if they knew where they were going.
They didn’t get there much, but when they did there was danger. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg slipped Austin through in the 31st minute and the striker forced the first save of the game from Fabianski.
Shortly before half-time, Austin cracked a powerful volley at the far post, which Fabianski was staunchly behind. He should have done better with a headed opportunity in the second half, too.
Southampton had been feeding off all manner of grievances before the game. Their hotel had cancelled on them on Sunday, claiming a virus meant they couldn’t take groups — individuals, apparently, are free to take their chances and I’ll report back on the wisdom of that — necessitating a relocation down the M4 at the Vale of Glamorgan, where Cardiff train.
Then a police escort supposed to speed them through rush hour traffic was cancelled — allegedly, there were differing versions of events as the night unfolded — then finally Southampton’s players were asked to wait 25 minutes on the team bus at the ground while Swansea’s coach unloaded.
Fuming, Hughes told his team to get off and walk to the ground instead. He said in a pre-match interview that the hotel cancellation had done them a favour. ‘The Swansea Marriott is one of the worst ones we stay in.’ Makes you wonder why he was so miffed about not going there, then.
And when Southampton’s players left the field after the pre-match warm-up, faces set like thunder, it was possible to fear the worst for the hosts. It would be a tough way to drop — the collateral damage of a hastily applied hotel health and safety arrangement — but there have been plenty of occasions this season when Swansea have lost games for reasons that were nothing to do with Marriott hotel group policy.
And that became quickly apparent. In the third minute, Jordan Ayew won a free-kick in a good position which he elected to take himself. He planted it, waist height, straight into the centre of Southampton’s wall, as tame an effort as could be.
When Ki Sung-yeung recycled a ball with a looping kick over his head, it was Jordan Ayew who moved it on, his hopeful header travelling in an arc over the bar. He came even closer to scoring immediately after the second-half restart, cutting in from the left and unleashing a shot that McCarthy tipped over magnificently.
It was more improvisation, though. What Swansea need before Sunday is a plan — and even then it may be too late.
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