sport news Southampton 1-0 Leicester: Carlos Alcaraz bags first-half winner trends now
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James Ward-Prowse hit a milestone and missed a penalty but still led Southampton off the foot of the table.
Saints skipper Ward-Prowse made his 330th appearance for the club, overtaking cult hero Jason Dodd to top their all-time list.
But he had new boy Carlos Alcaraz to thank for saving his bacon after Danny Ward saved the England midfielder’s first-half penalty.
Alcaraz, who later limped off after injuring himself celebrating his goal, scored for the second time in five Premier League appearances after his £12m January move from Racing Club in Argentina.
And after a series of dreadful misses from Kelechi Iheanacho and a stoppage-time miss from Harry Souttar, it proved enough for Saints to leapfrog Bournemouth, who lost a heartbreaker to Arsenal earlier in the day.
Both teams went into the game on the back of midweek FA Cup humblings, with Southampton’s winning the wooden spoon for biggest embarrassment of the round.
They lost at home to Grimsby, the lowest ranked team left in the competition, while Leicester were beaten at home by Blackburn.
Both these sides know Premier League survival is the name of the game though, and named much stronger line-ups for this clash between two basement dwellers.
Leicester had not won here since the monumental 9-0 thumping they handed Saints in October 2019 - still the biggest away win in English top-flight history.
Just how tight it remains at the wrong end of the table was underlined by the fact that only six points separated the two teams before kick-off.
Saints were the more desperate, and started
