Southampton managed to secure a safe passage through to the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 2-0 win against League One Shrewsbury Town at St Mary’s in the rearranged fixture on Tuesday night.
Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side could have been forgiven for not having the FA Cup high on their list of priorities given the amount of injuries inflicted upon them at the moment. Once again, the likes of Danny Ings, Yannik Vestergaard, Oriol Romeu, Will Smallbone, Nathan Redmond and Mohammed Salisu were all missing, but did not stop them from earning a hard-fought win.
The Saints made a host of changes to their starting line-up with some key players rested and the likes of Caleb Watts, Kegs Chauke and Dan N’Lundulu all handed the chance to impress from the start, which they duly did. The trio all demonstrated the potential that they can offer and perhaps eased some of the concerns over the depth of Hasenhuttl’s squad.
Playing in the FA Cup against teams from a lower division is never an easy task and we have already seen this season that upsets can very much be on the cards if teams do not turn up with the right mentality. That was demonstrated perhaps most starkly in the third round by Leeds United’s 3-0 defeat at League Two Crawley Town.
Southampton were determined not to fall victim to a shock and they were professional throughout and made their extra bit quality tell the difference. However, they perhaps made harder work of the tie than it could have been, had they taken more of their chances in the final third before James Ward-Prowse finally put the result beyond doubt in the closing minutes.
Here is how we rated the performances of each of the players to start for the Saints on the night, with many players seizing their chance to impress.
