Southampton played host to Liverpool at St Mary’s as they looked for a reaction after a disastrous opening-day defeat away to Burnley.
Liverpool headed into the game off the back of a UEFA Super Cup penalty shootout triumph over Chelsea and looked to maintain their 100% league record after a 4-1 win over Norwich City.
Ralph Hasenhuttl made two changes to the side that started at Turf Moor with Maya Yoshida replacing Jack Stephens and captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg returning to the team in place of Danny Ings.
Che Adams headed Southampton’s best chance of the first half over the crossbar after an Oriol Romeu cross. It looked as though both sides were going into the half-time break on level terms when Sadio Mane curled home a stunning strike in injury time to give the European champions the lead.
The second half saw Hasenhutl’s men put more pressure on last season’s Premier League runners-up, leaving them exposed at the back, which nearly cost them dearly as Roberto Firmino failed to find the target after a great ball from Mane on the counter. Firmino then doubled the visitors’ lead following a mistake from Jan Bednarek.
Ings managed to grab a consolation goal against his former side after pressuring Liverpool keeper Adrian into a mistake. Ings also had a golden chance to level proceedings with minutes of the game remaining, but couldn’t make the right connection with Yan Valery’s cross.
Here are four findings that we can take away from Saints’ second defeat of the season.
