Southampton 1 Crystal Palace 2: Luka Milivojevic seals comeback to pile pressure on Mauricio Pellegrino

There was, according to Southampton chairman Ralph Krueger, a “cloud” hovering over the club while Virgil van Dijk waited to complete his move to Liverpool. Van Dijk has now gone, of course, but on the evidence of yet another defeat for Mauricio Pellegrino’s side, those clouds will only darken further in the coming weeks.

Even the long-awaited return to goalscoring form of Shane Long failed to lift the mood as a south coast storm washed away all of Southampton’s composure in yet another painful defeat. In woeful conditions, they simply tossed their lead to wind, lost their grip on the game and eventually extended their winless run to nine games.

As the rain billowed down on Pellegrino at the end, it was accompanied both by the inevitable chants of “sacked in the morning” from the Palace supporters and the furious boos from the home fans. A couple of Southampton supporters even burst onto the pitch to voice their anger.

Afterwards, Pellegrino spoke of his side’s lack of confidence, and bemoaned the way they had failed to “read the game” as Palace grew into the second half. He did, though, accept responsibility for the performance. “I understand the fans,” he said. “Because we have the same feeling. Everybody that wants the best for this club obviously expects a different performance, but this situation is not about just today. It’s about a period of time when he could not compete as we want.”

Having started so well, and taken the lead through Long’s first goal since February, Southampton were out-thought and, crucially, out-fought by a Crystal Palace side that once again demonstrated its remarkable resilience.

Two second-half goals, from James McArthur and Luka Milivojevic, sealed a comeback that is doubly impressive considering only two days had passed since Palace’s exhausting draw with Manchester City. They have now lost only one of their last 11 games.

“After seven games we were on the canvas,” said manager Roy Hodgson. “It is an incredible achievement to get into the group of teams who could be relegated, rather than propping up the league.”

Having not scored for 35 games, and 1320 minutes, Long could have broken his duck after just 15 seconds, but skewed his shot well wide after a sharp move down the Southampton left. The goal eventually arrived little more than 15 minutes later, as he swept Jeremy Pied’s low cross inside Wayne Hennessey’s post.

Wilfried Zaha, as ever, was a threat for Palace, but Hodgson’s side looked as jaded as one might expect barely 48 hours after that breathless meeting with the league leaders. Andros Townsend did manage a shot from range, but that was a good as it got for the visitors before an army of groundsmen squelched their way onto the pitch at the break.

Palace controlled proceedings after half-time, though, and were soon level as James McArthur lashed home Christian Benteke’s cushioned header. From there, Palace were the far more likely to find a winner, and did so as Milivojevic, who had missed that crucial late penalty against City, curled past Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy from the edge of the box.

“I was very pleased for him,” Hodgson said. “The thing about penalties is that you assume you will score and everyone takes it badly. I am sure he was disappointed against City but this was a good goal.”

There was, howver, bad news to go with the victory. Hodgson revealed that both Jason Puncheon and Scott Dann injured their cruciate knee ligaments against City, and that both will be struggling to be fit for the start of next season, let alone the end of this campaign.