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Callum Paterson celebrates after scoring the winner.
Callum Paterson celebrates after scoring the winner. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
Callum Paterson celebrates after scoring the winner. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images

Ralph Hasenhüttl off to losing start with Southampton after Cardiff winner

This article is more than 5 years old

Ralph Hasenhüttl accepted the Southampton job after six months recharging the batteries in the Alps but defeat in his first match offered a jarring reminder of the mountain his new team must climb if they are to avoid relegation. A costly defensive error by Jannik Vestergaard gift-wrapped Cardiff a deserved victory, with Callum Paterson on hand to apply a composed finish 16 minutes from time. Southampton, who face Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea in the next month, are now winless in 14 matches, having won four of their past 41 and only remain off the foot of the table on goal difference.

For Hasenhüttl, this proved a harsh induction to the Premier League, with the Austrian thrown into battle with a tenacious Cardiff side after just two training sessions with his new team. This was a harrowing welcome into an unforgiving world of Aron Gunnarsson long throws and meaty challenges on a horrible afternoon in south Wales.

Many expected Cardiff, as Neil Warnock alluded to in his programme notes, to be rooted to the bottom of the table, but a fourth home win in five matches suggests there is plenty of life left in them yet. Whatever Cardiff, who rise to 14th, may lack in quality, they certainly make up for in spirit.

“It’s going to be a long, hard winter,” Warnock said. “We don’t get carried away, a club like ours. We say ‘It’s just another game’, but I think when I woke up in the middle of the night last night, I realised it was a big, tough game and I’m delighted to get three points. Callum will play anywhere for me, do anything. In the old-fashioned days, I would have said, ‘He would run through a brick wall for me’, but if I asked him to, he probably would. He’s a tremendous lad and I don’t honestly know what I’d do without him.”

Ralph Hasenhüttl on the touchline at Cardiff City Stadium. Photograph: Mark Kerton/PA

That Southampton struggled to live with a hardly prolific Cardiff team, who had a right-back leading the line as a makeshift striker, is indicative of the sorry predicament they find themselves in. After a bright start in which Charlie Austin twice flashed wide of Neil Etheridge’s goal, a vulnerable Southampton defence, particularly the 19-year-old full-back Yan Valery, were under siege for the majority of this match-up.

Harry Arter was ubiquitous as Cardiff suffocated Southampton and the midfielder spurned their first opening, after Nathaniel Mendez-Laing clawed the ball into the six-yard box after good work by the lively Josh Murphy. Sean Morrison, the Cardiff defender, wreaked havoc at the other end. After embarrassing Vestergaard not once but twice – the 6ft 6in Southampton centre-back made the Cardiff captain look like a world-beater – he slid in Paterson who failed to convert.

By the time Alex McCarthy, the exasperated Southampton goalkeeper, had diverted Murphy’s effort from an acute angle the visitors’ vulnerability had been laid painfully bare. “It’s a very difficult situation for the whole club but I know we can do better than we did today,” Hasenhüttl said. “Today we all learnt, absolutely.”

Southampton lived dangerously, yet there was always a sense that the hosts could be punished for their profligacy. The half-time whistle killed Cardiff’s momentum, with Southampton starting the second half more convincingly. They had a penalty appeal turned down by Jonathan Moss, the referee taking a dim view of the manner in which Stuart Armstrong fell via Victor Camarasa’s outstretched leg, infuriating Hasenhüttl on the touchline. They got the rub of the green moments later, but Matt Targett’s free-kick sailed over.

But Cardiff kept plugging away and, when Moss waved play on after Oriol Romeu clattered Camarasa on halfway, the ball ran through to Vestergaard, with Paterson lurking. At that point, Vestergaard provided an early Christmas present, with the £18m summer signing stuck in the mud and mistakenly playing in Paterson, who bulldozed his way through on goal before tucking home.

“You know me, I criticise referees,” Warnock added, “but I don’t think anybody other than Jonathan Moss would have given us an advantage. He didn’t blow for the obvious free-kick, then Paterson got that little bit of luck. I have to say a big thank you; I thought it was a fantastic advantage.”

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