If football was played on paper then Southampton needn’t have turned up against Newcastle, but they started like a team determined to cause an upset.
They only needed 10 minutes to nose ahead too, taking a surprise lead when the unmarked Jan Bednarek powered home from James Bree’s delivery.
Their advantage didn’t last too long though, as in typical Southampton fashion they hit the self-implode button. Joe Aribo felled Alexander Isak in the area, and after a brief VAR check, Sam Barrott awarded the penalty which the Swede coolly dispatched.
The confidence visibly drained out of the Saints at that point, and they soon found themselves in the familiar position of trailing.
Jacob Murphy was the architect, threading a perfect ball through for Isak, and the rest was a mere formality as he slid home into the far corner.
A 2-1 HT scoreline probably flattered the hosts as it turned out, with the post and offside flag preventing Joelinton wrapping the game up before the interval.
That was only a temporary reprieve for the Saints, who soon did find themselves two goals down when Sandro Tonali’s well-timed third man run saw him burst clear on goal and find the corner to effectively end the game as a contest.
Southampton had conceded five times in three of their prior four home league games before today, and would’ve been fearing a repeat here. They almost took another step on that unwanted road too, but fortunately for them, Murphy’s strike cannoned away to safety off the post.
There was perhaps an acceptance from Eddie Howe’s side that the game was won by that point, which would maybe explain why they nearly relinquished control in the closing stages when Mateus Fernandes took advantage of a defensive mix-up to seemingly halve the deficit.
Fortunately for the Magpies though, VAR intervened to call an offside which spared their blushes and they were untroubled from there on in seeing out a fourth successive top-flight away win for the first time since 1996.