Southampton suffered another blow in the battle for automatic promotion from the Championship on Tuesday night.
The Saints slipped to a 2-1 defeat to Hull City at St Mary’s, in what was their game in hand on Leeds United.
As a result, Russell Martin‘s side missed the chance to go 2nd in the Championship. Instead, they have now been leapfrogged by Ipswich Town.
The Tractor Boys beat Rotherham United 4-3 to move ahead of Southampton, who have slipped to 4th in the standings.
Now it seems as though there was one particular moment, that perfectly demonstrated how things went for the Saints in that defeat.
Will Smallbone has very mixed moment in Hull City defeat
This was a game in which Southampton struggled to get going from the very start.
They were a goal down inside 11 minutes, and trailed 2-0 before half time. Although substitute Joe Aribo did pull a goal back late on, it was not enough to get anything from the game for the hosts.
Indeed, there may be an argument that they would have been lucky to get anything given some of the passages of play they produced.
One of those that was picked up on by Daily Echo journalist Alfie House, occurred deep into the second half, and involved Southampton’s Will Smallbone.
Writing on X at the time of the incident, the reporter noted: “Will Smallbone sums this evening up with an inch-perfect touch to bring the ball down for an attack and a tepid pass to sell his arriving teammate completely short.”
Southampton will look to bounce back on Saturday afternoon, when they host Millwall at St Mary’s.
Nature of defeat concerning for Southampton
You have to feel that these sort of moments in defeat will be concerning for those of a Saints persuasion.
After recently losing their 25-game unbeaten run to Bristol City, Southampton produced a perfect response last time out with the 2-0 win at West Brom.
There would have been a hope therefore, that they could have built on that against Hull City here.
However, it seems they were rarely close to really doing that against the Tigers. Consequently, there may be some nerves, about whether they may now slip back into their old struggles from the early stages of this season.
Given we are now at a crucial stage of the campaign, where there is so much at stake, that is something they surely cannot afford to do.
As a result, it seems vital that Southampton produce another quick response against Millwall at the weekend.
Given the struggles their opponents in that game are enduring, that could be an ideal fixture for Martin and his side.