Southampton picked up their first points of the 2019/20 Premier League season after a hard-fought 2-0 win at Brighton.
Brighton were reduced down to 10 men following a shocking challenge by Florin Andone on Yan Valery which could have easily been a leg breaker.
The hosts then had a goal disallowed a few minutes later after Lewis Dunk headed home from a corner before VAR ruled it out due to Dan Burn backing into Angus Gunn and knocking him over from an offside position.
Moussa Djenepo sparked the game into life early in the second-half just a couple of minutes after coming on by picking the ball up on the left, cutting inside and curling a superb effort into the far corner.
After Brighton were pressing for an equaliser, Saints sealed the win following a Sofiane Boufal run down the left, where the Moroccan played the ball across goal for Nathan Redmond to slot home.
Here’s how we rated the Southampton players:
Angus Gunn: 7
Although none of his saves were particularly difficult, he did all he could to keep a clean sheet. He was also fouled for the disallowed goal which was correctly awarded.
Yan Valery: 6
I’m just glad that Valery wasn’t hurt from Andone’s red-card offence, other than that it was a quiet game for the right-back who couldn’t get forward as much in the 4-2-2-2 formation.
Jan Bednarek: 6
Brighton had periods of sustained pressure but were largely marshalled well by the Saints defence which was led by the Polish centre-back.
Jannik Vestergaard: 6
Vestergaard also coped well against the likes of Neal Maupay and Leandro Trossard, and he helped contribute to a first clean sheet of the season
Kevin Danso: 7
I think the best way you can describe Danso’s debut is ‘doing a job’. After coming in for the injured Bertrand, he had to fill in at left-back which isn’t his favoured position but he coped admirably.
Oriol Romeu: 6
Not quite the performance we saw from the Liverpool game but Romeu still shielded the defence well and did a lot of the dirty work.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg: 4
After scoring in both fixtures against Brighton last season, Hojbjerg had a very quiet afternoon at the Amex and could’ve had more of an impact at various points. He also got out-muscled in possession a few times which is very rare for the skipper.
James Ward-Prowse: 6
There was lots of endeavour about Ward-Prowse’s performance even if his quality didn’t quite match.
Nathan Redmond: 8
Once again Redmond looked the most likely to cause problems for the opposition defence after making numerous runs from deep and testing the Brighton goal from distance. He was rewarded with a goal late on.
Danny Ings: 5
Neither of the strikers covered themselves in glory today after few chances were created with Ings often static at the top of the pitch.
Che Adams: 5
It was a similar story for Adams who had his most disappointing match in a Saints shirt to date.
Moussa Djenepo (sub): 8
What an impact from Djenepo! Just a couple of minutes after coming on, he scored an excellent goal that would end up as the winner, and he showed further signs of an exciting nature going forward as well.
Sofiane Boufal (sub): N/A
Made a couple of super runs, one of which provided the assist to Nathan Redmond’s goal, not on long enough for a rating.
Stuart Armstrong (sub): N/A
Tested Mat Ryan in the Brighton goal moments before the second goal but also wasn’t on long enough.