SOUTHAMPTON (Reuters) – Carlos Alcaraz grabbed the only goal as Southampton beat Leicester City 1-0 at St Mary’s Stadium on Saturday to move off the bottom of the table with their second Premier League win in three matches under new manager Ruben Selles.
The win moves Southampton up to 19th on 21 points from 25 games, ahead of Bournemouth, who were beaten by Arsenal earlier on Saturday. Leicester remain in 15th.
Southampton started strongly and their pressure told when Timothy Castagne handled the ball in the 31st minute to give away a penalty. James Ward-Prowse stepped up to take the spotkick, but his well-struck effort was saved by Danny Ward.
Carlos Alcaraz opened the scoring for the hosts in the 34th minute, calmly slotting his effort into the bottom corner past Ward after being played through by Che Adams. There was an anxious wait for a VAR check and a huge roar when the goal was confirmed.
Leicester’s Kelechi Iheanacho was a nuisance throughout, but he missed a string of chances, the best of which came in the 49th minute, when he failed to hit the target with a free header from six yards out.
Brendan Rodgers brought on Jamie Vardy as the visitors pressed and probed for an equaliser in the second half and Harry Souttar rattled the crossbar with a header in added time, but Southampton held on to claim their first home win since August.
(This story has been refiled to add dropped words “was confirmed” at the end of paragraph 4.)
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens)
