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 this week’s World Cup qualifier with England by stepping off the bench and offering Mike Phelan’s side a lifeline.
By extending his left foot to lash a superbly assured equaliser inside a post and then providing the perfectly weighted, subtly curving, free-kick from which Michael Dawson secured Hull’s first League victory since August, Snodgrass transformed a contest that an initially superior Southampton should have won by a country mile.
It meant that, at the end of a grey, wet, raw Humberside afternoon on which anyone who neglected to wear gloves made a major tactical error, Phelan’s horizon had brightened appreciably.
“It was a big, big risk to bring Snoddy on that early,” said Hull’s manager whose hand was forced by an injury to Will Keane. “But it turned things our way. Snoddy can do things other players can’t. Once again he’s showed his quality.”
Played against a soundtrack of “Allams out” from those home fans who had bothered to turn up – the stadium was only two-thirds full – the first half was embarrassingly one-sided. For prolonged periods Southampton appeared to inhabit a different stratosphere with their slick pass-and-move game monopolising possession and proving virtually impossible for Phelan’s players to second guess.
With Nathan Redmond prominent, they cut through Hull with the almost inappropriate ruthlessness of a power tool slicing a soufflé.
Claude Puel’s side assumed an early lead after Curtis Davies needlessly hauled Maya Yoshida down 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 simply be content to have a full complement of fit forwards. Emphasising that Hull’s manager is certainly not having much luck with injuries, Abel Hernández quickly pulled up with an injury and hobbled off, to be replaced by Dieumerci Mbokani. Then, minutes later, Keane sustained knee damage which Phelan conceded “looks serious”.
Again there was no contact with a Southampton player but Keane fell awkwardly and was helped off appearing extremely upset. On came Snodgrass in that ultimately game-changing switch. Initially, though, the difference proved incremental and his brutal exposure of Ryan Bertrand’s limitations took time to become fully apparent.
Until then Hull’s most optimistic moment had involved a prospective opposition dismissal. When Dusan Tadic launched himself into an awful, late, studs-up, knee-high challenge on the mercifully unhurt Ryan Mason in what was not so much a tackle as an assault, a red card beckoned but Graham Scott merely issued Tadic with a yellow.
Happily for Phelan visiting minds fatigued by Thursday night’s Europa League victory over Internazionale eventually began wandering, permitting Sam Clucas’s pass from the left to find Snodgrass.
As the winger’s left foot did the rest, sudden doubts entered the minds of the previously underemployed Fraser Forster and imperious Virgil van Dijk. They were compounded when Snodgrass curled in the free-kick from which Dawson out-leapt all comers to head the winner.
Marshall subsequently made fine saves to deny Austin twice and Yoshida while Clucas contributed a stoppage-time clearance off the line but Hull held on to set the stage for an intriguing relegation “six-pointer” at Sunderland on Saturday week.
