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Kamaldin Suleimana ended a 37-game goal drought and Tyler Diblin scored twice as Southampton beat Swansea 3-0 in the FA Cup third round. It was the first victory for coach Ivan Juric.
Suleimana, who signed for a club-record £22m from French club Rennes two years ago, scored for the Premier League bottom side at St Mary’s Stadium for the first time since May 2023 .
Teenager Diblin benefited from an assist from Suleimana to score Saints’ second before adding another in the second period to beat mid-table opponents in the Sky Bet Championship.
The 1976 FA Cup winners eased to victory as they sit 10 points adrift of safety in the top flight but finished fourth in 25 games this season, ending an 11-game winless run since November 2 Record.
Southampton will face promoted champions Burnley in the fourth round early next month.
Head coach Juric has lost three consecutive league games after taking over from the sacked Russell Martin before Christmas following last weekend’s 5-0 home win over Brentford.
The Croatian kept faith with nine players in a starting XI that embarrassed the Bees, with Swansea boss Liam Williams starting second-choice goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin and scoring the most nine goals Top scorer Liam Cullen was dropped on the bench as part of his four-man squad.
change.
Ghana international Suleimana and full-back Kyle Walker-Peters each threatened twice in the early stages before the home side took the lead in the 20th minute with a first-line effort.
Swans goalkeeper McLaughlin was stranded on the ball after Aaron Ramsdale’s goal kick was cleared by Lesley Ugochukwu. Sulemana calmly found the unmarked goal from the 18-yard edge.
area.
Swansea, who started the new year with a 4-0 win over south coast Saints rivals Portsmouth, fell further behind 10 minutes before half-time.
Suleimana was the creator of the play, exchanging passes with Ugochukwu on the left before setting up Diblin to score from just inside the six-yard box.
From an attacking perspective, the visitors failed to provide anything of note in a relatively one-sided opening period and relied on McLaughlin to deny Tyler Harwood-Bellis from Ryan Mann early in the second quarter. Ning’s header from a corner kick.
Although Southampton remained in control, the home fans were hungry for a third goal to eliminate the possibility of extra time and a penalty shootout.
With 25 minutes left, Kyle Naughton failed to clear Manning’s low cross from the left and 18-year-old Dibling fired into the bottom left corner.
Swansea came close to grabbing a glimmer of consolation with eight minutes left when substitute Joe Ayen mishandled goalkeeper Ramsdale’s pass after Will Smallbone mishandled a pass from goalkeeper Ramsdale. Joe Allen hit the inside of the left post.
But Southampton almost added a fourth goal through substitute Adam Armstrong and were rarely tested as they eased through before resuming their relegation battle with Manchester United on Thursday.
What managers say…
southampton boss Ivan Jurich: “I’m happy, satisfied and I thought we played a good game.
“I saw a lot of good things and some not so good things, but we were very happy, happy.
“I hope this is a new start. This is the FA Cup and now we want to be well prepared to play Manchester United (in the next game) to be better than the last game (against Brentford) More competitive.
“I think we can do it.”
swansea boss Luke Williams On the differences between the sides: “The quality of the Premier League’s forward lines is probably combined with a goalkeeper who hasn’t played for a while and two centre-backs who haven’t played for a while.
“I really think we have a good goalkeeper, we have two very good centre-back players, but without playing time recently and against opponents, it’s been tough for them.
“The bottom line is we faced a good team but we couldn’t cope.
“Our biggest problem was that our build-up was too sloppy. We gave the ball away so cheaply and we can’t do that against a Premier League team.”
