Kamaldeen Sulemana ended a 37-game goal drought and Tyler Dibling scored twice as Southampton registered a first win under manager Ivan Juric by beating Swansea 3-0 in the FA Cup third round.
Club-record signing Sulemana, who cost a reported £22m from French club Rennes two years ago, found the net for the first time since May 2023 by lobbing the Premier League’s bottom side ahead at St Mary’s.
Teenager Dibling benefited from a Sulemana assist to claim Saints’ second before adding another in the second period to finish off opposition sitting mid-table in the Sky Bet Championship.
A comfortable victory for the 1976 FA Cup winners, who are 10 points adrift of safety in the top flight, was only a fourth in 25 outings this term and ended an 11-match winless run stretching back to November 2.
Southampton will host Championship promotion hopefuls Burnley in round four early next month.
Head coach Juric has overseen three successive league losses since replacing the sacked Russell Martin just before Christmas following last weekend’s 5-0 hammering at home to Brentford.
The Croatian kept faith with nine of the starting XI embarrassed by the Bees, while Swansea boss Liam Williams started second-choice goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin and dropped nine-goal top scorer Liam Cullen to the bench as part of his four
changes.
Ghana international Sulemana and wing-back Kyle Walker-Peters each threatened twice in the opening stages before the hosts edged ahead in route-one fashion in the 20th minute.
After Aaron Ramsdale’s goal-kick was flicked on by Lesley Ugochukwu, Swans ‘keeper McLaughlin was left stranded in his efforts to reach the loose ball, allowing Sulemana to calmly find the unguarded goal from the edge of the 18-yard
area.
Swansea, who began the new year with a 4-0 thrashing along the south coast at Saints’ bitter rivals Portsmouth, enjoyed a period of possession before falling further behind 10 minutes shy of half-time.
Sulemana was the creator on this occasion, exchanging passes with Ugochukwu on the left before delivering a low centre for Dibling to tap home from his inside the six-yard box.
The visitors offered nothing of note from an attacking perspective in a relatively one-sided opening period and were reliant on McLaughlin keeping out Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ header from a Ryan Manning corner early in the second.
While Southampton remained in control, home fans were eager for a third goal to snuff out any possibility of being taken to extra-time and, potentially, penalties.
The 18-year-old Dibling duly delivered 25 minutes from time, drilling into the bottom left corner after Kyle Naughton failed to clear Manning’s low cross from the left.
Swansea nearly snatched a consolation eight minutes from time when substitute Joe Allen struck the inside of the left post after Will Smallbone miscontrolled a pass from ‘keeper Ramsdale.
But Southampton, who almost added a fourth through substitute Adam Armstrong, were rarely tested as they eased through ahead of resuming their relegation battle at Manchester United on Thursday.
What the managers said…
Southampton boss Ivan Juric: “I’m very happy, very satisfied, I think we did one good game.
“I saw lots of good things, a few not so good but we are very pleased, happy.
“I hope it’s a new beginning. It’s the FA Cup and now we want to prepare really well to play against Manchester United [in our next game] to be more competitive than we were in the last game [against Brentford].
“I think we can do it.”
Swansea boss Luke Williams on the difference between the sides: “Premier League quality up front probably combined with a goalkeeper that hasn’t played for a while and two central defenders that haven’t played for quite a while.
“I really think we have a good goalkeeper, we have two really good players playing at centre-back but, without minutes recently and against that opposition, it was tough for them.
“The main thing is we played against a superior team and we weren’t able to cope.
“Our biggest problem was we were so sloppy in our build-up. We gave the ball away so cheaply and we can’t afford to do that against a Premier League outfit.”
