Southampton 2-0 Huddersfield: Saints advance in FA Cup thanks to academy youngsters

Southampton progressed to the Fourth-Round of the FA Cup after a 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town on Saturday afternoon.

In a much changed Saints side, it was academy players Will Smallbone and Jake Vokins who proved to be the match winners.

The former opened the scoring with a sweet volley just after half-time, whilst the latter rounded off the afternoon with a deflected strike from range that pinged in off the crossbar.

Ahead of the game, eyebrows were perhaps raised at the number of changes that Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuttl made to his line-up.

Ten changes were made in total from Wednesday’s win over Spurs, with James Ward-Prowse – with the captains armband for Saturday – being the only player to start both games.

It didn’t take long for Will Smallbone to make an impression in the early stages of the game.

First, his shot from just outside the area flew over the bar after he had shown good skill to break through into a shooting position, and then he would have thought he had assisted the game’s opening goal.

The Irish youth international cushioned a pass from Jannik Vestergaard into the path of Shane Long to put the striker through on goal to finish coolly, but VAR ruled the goal out after showing that he was offside by the barest of margins.

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Juninho Bacuna forced a smart save from Angus Gunn as Huddersfield looked to get themselves in front, but Smallbone would be back involved to open the scoring and open his Saints senior account in the 47th minute.

A deep cross from Kevin Danso was headed back towards the penalty spot, leaving an open penalty area for the youngster to stride onto the ball and slam home into the bottom corner – perhaps a good glimpse of the natural technique that the midfielder has.

Saints controlled much of the game from then on, but there was still time for Jake Vokins to make it another special day to remember for the club’s academy.

Che Adams did well to set the full-back off into space down the left flank and Vokins made full use of the time he was given – taking the ball right towards the edge of the area before seeing his powerful strike take a slight deflection off a defender and fly into the net off the bar.

With the most busy part of the season now faced, could Saints build a real run in the cup this season? They will find out their opponents for the next round on Monday evening.

Saints team

Gunn, Danso (Cedric Soares 75), Yoshida, Vestergaard, Vokins (Armstrong 70), Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Smallbone, Boufal (Obafemi 78), Adams, Long

Subs not used: Lewis, Stephens, Ings, Slattery

Huddersfield team

Coleman, Simpson, Schindler, Stankovic, Brown, Hogg, Chalobah, O’Brien (Koroma 83), Hadergjonaj, Campbell (Mounie 62), Bacuna (Grant 66)

Subs not used: Schofield, Harratt, Daly, High