City looked to be heading for an unwelcome record of a seventh straight defeat against Southampton but magically managed to turn things round.
Fielding the same team that started against Watford last week they started off hesitantly and after only 5 minutes Davies conceded a soft penalty which was inevitably converted by Charlie Austin who couldn’t resist baiting the crowd after he had scored.
Again Clucas looked exposed at full back without any real help from midfield.
After 9 minutes Hernandez limped off with what looked like a groin injury to be replaced by Mbokani.
Clucas had a snapshot which flew wide and then things got worse when Keene limped off to be replaced by Snodgrass.
City were looking down the barrel but through good luck and lack of effort on Southampton’s part managed to hang on to half time without threatening Forster in the Southampton goal.
HT Hull City 0-1 Southampton
Van Dijk hit the City bar with a header on 51 minutes as City clung on.
As the game looked to be drifting away from City it turned dramatically on the hour. Clucas burst into the box from the left and pulled the ball back for Snodgrass who buried an unstoppable volley into the net. City seemed to derive inner belief from that and two minutes later a free kick by Snodgrass was powered into the top left hand corner of the net with a great header from Dawson.
City by no means had the game all their own way after that but the impetuous was with them. Phelan inexplicably replaced Maguire with Huddlestone after 75 minutes and a minute later Marshall made a good save low down to his left to deny Austin. On 86 he repeated the feat and despite a frantic last 5 minutes and 4 minutes of injury time City clung on for a much needed victory.
FT Hull City 2-1 Southampton
Let’s hope that almost by default Phelan has found his best side and we can finally start to turn things around.
Tony Atkin, 6.11.16
