Southampton hauled themselves out of the relegation zone and pushed Fulham closer to the precipice with a 2-0 victory at St Mary’s courtesy of Oriol Romeu and James Ward-Prowse’s first half goals.
They weren’t made to work particularly hard for the victory as once again, Fulham’s wafer-thin defence was exposed to leave them winless on their travels.
This was the Saints’ first win in five as they climbed above Cardiff but there is plenty of work left to do yet with Manchester United and Tottenham next to play.
This was never likely to be a match high on quality given the respective positions of the two clubs and what was at stake – and so it proved.
There were no early chances, though Southampton’s Charlie Austin did have the ball in the net after 15 minutes before Anthony Taylor adjudged that he had shoved Fulham Keeper Sergio Rico off balance as he attempted to punch clear.
Claudio Ranieri doesn’t travel well. He hadn’t won away for 22 games in the Premier League, a run which spans the end of his spell as Leicester City manager.
Fulham were the only Premier League side without an away win all season, losing 12 of their previous 14 outings.
For the majority of the club’s supporters it has not been a case of if they go down, but when.
Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side sought to find an advantage. Nathan Redmond had their first shot on target, deflected over by Tim Ream.
From their second, they scored. Sergio Rico punched Ryan Bertrand’s corner to the edge of the area and Oriol Romeu drove it back through a crowd and into the net.
That eased the tension a little, though Saints had dropped 17 points from winning positions, one fewer than Fulham.
The Saints went close again as Austin and Redmond combined to create an opening for Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg 20 yards from goal which the Dane fired narrowly wide.
Fulham were tentative in attack and took until ten minutes before the break to fashion a meaningful chance. It came as Aleksandar Mitrovic broke down the right and found Andre-Frank Anguissa but he shot whilst off-balance, allowing Angus Gunn a simple save.
But as it has been since August, Fulham’s defending was soon found wanting again and the Saints took full advantage.
Austin collected Hojbjerg’s header and played in Redmond whose first-time shot was unconvincingly pushed out by Rico and Ward-Prowse was first to bundle in the rebound ahead of Joe Bryan. It was the midfielder’s fourth goal in eight games.
Fulham offered little in the way of a fight-back, with Mitrovic isolated and frustrated in attack.
Even the notoriously benign Fulham support was beginning to lose patience. They displayed a banner reading: ‘are you watching Tony Khan’ and chanted ‘you don’t know what you’re doing as their team limped to defeat in front of them.
This result would increase the gap between Fulham and safety to ten points. Overcoming that at this stage would surely rank alongside Ranirei’s Leicester miracle of three years ago.
There was nothing in evidence here to suggest that could happen. Fulham could barely muster a shot though Ryan Babel did strike the crossbar 15 minutes from time.
Too little, too late and Fulham’s time is almost up.
