No golden boot for Danny Ings but the silver lining here was a rare home victory for Southampton thanks to two goals by their less heralded striker, Che Adams. Naturally Ings also scored, wrapping up the win by converting a late penalty to claim his 22nd league goal of the campaign.
As if summarising their season, Southampton had to recover from a bad start, with John Lundstram firing Sheffield United into a first-half lead before Ralph Hasenhüttl’s side stormed back. Alex McCarthy made a couple of fine saves to stop United from increasing their lead before the hosts’ improvement.
It was as tribute to both clubs that none of this mattered much in terms of final standings. “We finished ninth ahead of some giant clubs who’ve been in and around the Premier League for years,” said Chris Wilder, who was frustrated with this defeat but satisfied with the season. “I’m proud of the way we’ve attacked it. We’ve represented the club in brilliant fashion. We’ve had to do an enormous amount of things right to get into the top 10. We attacked the Premier League with respect but played, for the majority of the time, the way we wanted to.”
Lundstram made the breakthrough here in the 26th minute thanks to a cross from the left by Enda Stevens and flimsy defending by Jannik Vestergaard. The midfielder rammed a shot under McCarthy from eight yards.
With Southampton already sure of safety in the bottom half of the table following their recovery from October’s historic 9-0 beating by Leicester, they were not obliged to exert themselves to turn the tables here. But they had their pride and wanted to improve their home record, with only Norwich having a worse one than them in the Premier League this season. Hasenhüttl omitted Pierre-Emile Højbjerg amid active transfer interest from Everton or Tottenham Hotspur. “I just wanted to concentrate on the game,” said the Southampton manager.
There was never any danger of Ings being left out, as he still had hopes of climbing to the top of the Premier League scoring charts. But both he and Adams were well controlled by the three visiting centre-backs in the first half. The only save that Dean Henderson had to make in the first period was from a gentle long-range effort by Nathan Redmond.
At the other end, McCarthy prevailed in a one-on-one contest with Billy Sharp and then, in the 34th minute, made a tremendous save to deny Lundstram. “We should have been out of sight by half-time,” said Wilder, whose team dwindled thereafter.
Sloppiness by United enabled Adams to equalise early in the second half. Chris Basham and Sander Berge were guilty of ropey passes before Adams beat the goalkeeper on loan from Manchester United with a shot that David De Gea would have saved. Probably.
Henderson was blameless when Adams struck again for Southampton, finishing smartly from eight yards after John Egan blocked a shot by Walker-Peters. When Ollie Norwood conceded a late penalty, Ings fittingly had the last word. That confirmed Southampton’s haul of 18 points from the 27 available since the league’s restart. “What we did after lockdown is unbelievable,” said Hasenhüttl.
