Southampton 3-1 Stoke City

After the opening day wobble at Watford, St Mary’s needed a response. And boy, did we get one — eventually. Southampton 3, Stoke City 1, first points on the board, and a second half that went from nervy to glorious in the space of a few chaotic, wonderful minutes.

Cyle Larin set the tone early, finding the net on eight minutes to give the home crowd something to roar about before most of us had even sat down with our overpriced coffee. It was the kind of start that makes you think, “Right, here we go, this is the season properly beginning.” And then, because this is Southampton and we simply cannot do things the easy way, we let Stoke back into it. Ethan Galbraith’s equaliser on 26 minutes was a bucket of cold water, and suddenly those familiar anxious murmurs rippled around the ground. You know the ones — the collective sigh of 29,000 people remembering every time we’ve thrown away a lead.

What followed was a proper arm-wrestle. The kind of Championship scrap that makes you appreciate why this division is both brilliant and deeply maddening. James Bree picked up an early booking, and then Flynn Downes and Ryan Manning collected yellows within three minutes of each other early in the second half, which had the sort of energy you’d associate with a pub quiz team collectively losing the plot. For a spell, we looked more likely to implode than pull away.

But Tonda Eckert’s side showed something we perhaps lacked at Watford: patience. We held 58% possession, kept probing, kept pressing. Stoke committed 21 fouls — twice as many as us — and the cards piled up on their side too, with four yellows and eventually a red for Svante Ingelsson in stoppage time, the cherry on a thoroughly miserable afternoon for the Potters.

The real magic came late. With the game locked at 1-1 and nerves jangling, Divin Mubama chose the 89th minute to announce himself to the St Mary’s faithful with his first Saints goal. “Divin intervention,” as the Echo perfectly put it. The place erupted. Then Ryan Manning converted a stoppage-time penalty to turn a tight win into a comfortable one on paper, if not on the fingernails.

The elephant not in the room? Taylor Harwood-Bellis, left out of the squad entirely with Aston Villa reportedly sniffing around. Eckert talked about “condition to perform,” which is manager-speak we’ve all learned to decode by now. If he goes, he goes — but the lads who stepped up today proved there’s backbone in this squad regardless.

Three goals, three points, and a late surge that had St Mary’s bouncing. If this is what the Championship rollercoaster looks like under Eckert, strap in — but at least today we were screaming with joy rather than into a pillow. Bring on the next one.