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75 min: Bree’s corner is flapped away by Kepa, under pressure from Udogie. That wasn’t the most convincing goalkeeping, but it does the job.
74 min: Fellows sashays past Calafiori down the right with ease. He loops a cross to the far post, where White is forced to knee behind for a corner. Bree will take.
72 min: Gabriel goes down holding his left knee. On comes the physio. Mikel Arteta takes the opportunity to give his team an impromptu team-talk. Then Gabriel gets back up and wanders off. Saliba takes his place.
71 min: Southampton respond with a double change. Stewart and Scienza are replaced by Larin and Edozie.
70 min: Saints had their chances to double their lead. But they couldn’t quite manage it, and that triple substitution completely changed the momentum. The mood inside St Mary’s is very different now.
GOAL! Southampton 1-1 Arsenal (Gyokeres 68)
Arsenal have been turning up the pressure, and now it pays. Gabriel plays a pass down the inside-left channel to release Havertz, who draws Peretz towards him at the near post before cutting back for Gyokeres, who can’t miss from six yards. The league leaders are level!
66 min: Harwood-Bellis gives the ball away, 35 yards out. Dowman intercepts and dribbles down the middle. He tries to release Gyokeres to his right, but misplaces the pass and Saints clear their lines.
65 min: Madueke turns on the jets to steam past Wood on the right. But he takes a heavy touch, and the ball sails out for a goal kick. Madueke goes over as it all happens, but isn’t looking for a penalty, making no claim.
63 min: … but that lead is precarious, and Arsenal nearly wipe it out! Dowman dribbles elegantly down the inside-right channel. His dink into the middle is only half cleared, and Martinelli collects the ball before hoicking it over the bar from the edge of the box. A fine cup tie sways this way and that, delicately balanced.
62 min: Scienza bursts into space down the left, drifts infield, and sends a vicious dipping shot across Kepa, towards the top right, and off the top of the bar! Saints getting closer and closer to doubling their lead!
61 min: Arsenal make a triple change, replacing Lewis-Skelly, Odegaard and Jesus with Gyokeres, Madueke and Calafiori.
60 min: Mosquera plays a daft pass across the back. Nowhere near its intended target of Gabriel. Fellows snaffles, and races towards the Arsenal box. He leans back and larrups a poor effort over the bar. A huge let-off for Mosquera and Arsenal!
59 min: Arsenal deal with the in-swinging corner easily enough.
58 min: Southampton keep Arsenal pinned back, and Bree crosses from the left. Mosquera is forced to head over his own crossbar under intense pressure from Stewart. Manning to take the corner from the right this time.
57 min: Lewis-Skelly ships possession in the middle of the park, allowing Fellows to scamper into the Arsenal box down the right and win a corner. Scienza wanders over to take it. It’s worked up and down the flank, and Scienza whips a dangerous cross into the mixer. Gabriel heads clear with yellow shirts lurking.
56 min: Scienza, quarterbacking from deep, nearly releases Fellows down the middle with a forensic defence-splitter. But Kepa races out of his area to bash clear. Southampton still looking to spring forward whenever the opportunity presents itself.
54 min: Martinelli sticks the corner under the crossbar. Peretz flaps it away. Martinelli comes back down the left. Fellows considers challenging from behind … then thinks better of it. Next to no contact. Not enough for Martinelli to go over and give the referee a decision to make.
53 min: Martinelli makes good down the left and loops a cross towards Dowman, who sends a low drive goalwards. Manning flings himself in the road and deflects the ball over the bar for a corner.
52 min: Gabriel slices a poor clearance straight out of play, to ironic cheering from the home support. Arsenal continue to look a little bit agitated.
50 min: Lewis-Skelly jinks in from the left and is clipped by Fellows. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Southampton box to wait for Martinelli’s delivery. But Odegaard suddenly pops up to take it instead, sending a flat one into the area. Jesus flicks it on daintily, and Peretz gathers without fuss.
48 min: Scienza spins around White and is hauled back for his trouble. For some reason, White doesn’t go into the book for that cynical foul.
47 min: There are two yellow balloons on the pitch. Nothing much else to report at the minute.
Saints get the second half started. No changes. “After their FA Cup final win in 1976, Southampton had the civic reception in the city,” begins Ian Burch. “Later that night and no doubt feeling a bit tired and emotional, Peter Osgood ‘borrowed’ the cup and drove it around the city in his car stopping off along the way and showing it off to anyone who wanted to have a look at it. Waking up the next day he suddenly remembered it was downstairs on his sideboard. Ossie of course is still the last player to score in every round of the FA Cup and to my generation will always be Chelsea’s greatest ever player. Fantastic.”
Half-time postbag. “It’s Easter time, isn’t it? Arsenal doing an excellent impression of Easter bunnies, with the back line especially seemingly dazed by whatever is going on in front of them. Chocolate provided by the chocolate–teapot effectiveness of one or two of those further up. And, sadly, experience suggests little chance of any resurrection of goal scoring from their nominal number nine. Severe talking-to wanted at halftime” – Charles Antaki
“Back in 1976, when Saints last won ‘the bloody thing’ (© Mick Channon), Rod Stewart had an album out titled A Night on the Town, with a single called Tonight’s the Night. I’m guessing young Ross Stewart will having one himself, if tonight’s Southampton’s night” – Justin Kavanagh
“Having Jesus on their side, Arsenal should know how to deal with crosses better. Because someone had to say it…” – Andy Gordon
“I’m hoping Pep and his City boys have paid to have this piped into the Arsenal dressing room at half time” – Simon ‘Tea-Time Whiskies’ McMahon
Half-time entertainment. A quick rummage through our Joy of Six archive has turned up this entry about that 1976 final. You know, seeing we’re on the subject. Enjoy, enjoy.
3) Southampton 1-0 Manchester United (FA Cup final, 1 May 1976)
Hey pop kids!!! Anyone for some raging pro-United Guardian bias?!? You love it, you lot, don’t you? Gertcha! Here goes, then, with the leader column of the Guardian on the morning of the 1976 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Southampton. “A newspaper can sit quite comfortably astride any convenient fence and say, for example, that though Manchester United are a glamorous footballing side, nevertheless Southampton have the romance of the underdog to set alongside the talent of Channon. Or vice versa. Wembley today, however, is no occasion for vice or versa. Manchester must win. A loss will be a disaster ... Throughout the season, dismantling dour defence after dour defence, United have sent a dozen managers back to the drawing board. The repercussions, exhilarating already, will gain permanence if Manchester United gain a major trophy. Football will win if they win.”
Imagine if this newspaper – if any newspaper – had the chutzpah to publish something like this today. The bottom half of the internet would shear off and frisbee away into outer space, powered solely by the hot heat of disproportionate outrage, never to return. Something which may or may not give our current leader writers pause. But back in the day, opinions were tolerated in the adult fashion. David Lacey, while acknowledging the skills of Mick Channon, Jim McCalliog, Peter Osgood and Paul Gilchrist, suggested that “evenness of talent is not Southampton’s strength” and that they would in all probability “bow to the inevitability of Manchester’s speed and accuracy ... the outcome appears to be a question of how rather than who – a dangerous presumption, as Sunderland demonstrated in 1973.”
A dangerous presumption indeed, as Lacey recognised after Bobby Stokes had fizzed home a late winner – destined to remain forever an offside controversy thanks to shaky camerawork – to stun Wembley and the wider world. “There were even those who felt that a win for Southampton might be bad for football because it would mean a stifling of Manchester’s ingenuity and a reaffirmation that at the last defensive methods brought the best rewards. The course of the game did not bear this out. Certainly those who had come along on a sunny May Day hoping to be enthralled by a pageant of United’s talents were disappointed, but Southampton created more scoring opportunities and while their play was based on a broad defensive platform, in no way could their performance be described as negative.”
United’s league season had petered out spectacularly – the title was in their hands at the end of March, but they ended the season trailing Liverpool and QPR after unexpected defeats to Ipswich and Stoke City – and their Cup challenge ended rather lamely too. They started off the stronger side, but were continually caught offside, losing heart quickly. Sammy McIlroy hit the bar with a header, but that was the sum total of their efforts in the final. In the first half, McCalliog sent Channon clear with a raking pass down the middle. Alex Stepney saved, but could do nothing when McCalliog repeated the trick for Stokes on 84 minutes. It would not be the last time Saints humbled United in the FA Cup – in 1992, Tim Flowers famously went on a demented pitch-long celebratory charge after his side triumphed in the first FA Cup penalty shootout involving top-flight teams, having been slightly fortunate to hold United to a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford, Bryan Robson heading home a ghost goal, unnoticed by the officials – but this was the big one.
Southampton were welcomed back to the city by a crowd of 175,000 as their team bus wound its way through the streets for 19 miles. United, too, were whisked to a civic reception, though their nine-mile tour was rather more muted. “With no cup to wave,” reported the Guardian, “United had a flat cardboard replica fastened to the front of their bus instead.” What the paper’s leader writer thought of this “glamorous” state of affairs is not known.
HALF TIME: Southampton 1-0 Arsenal
This scoreline doesn’t flatter Saints at all.
45 min +1: Dowman probes down the right and cuts back for Norgaard, who sends a fierce drive through a crowded box. No deflection, and it’s straight into Peretz’s arms.
45 min: There will be one additional minute.
43 min: The announcement of a VAR check for a potential handball by Lewis-Skelly in the Arsenal box. But when the replay rolls, it’s clearly nothing of the sort. Panic over for Arsenal.
41 min: A comedy of errors as Kepa comes racing out of his box to clear. The ball drops to Havertz, who miscues a slice straight to Azaz. Fortunately for the walkabout keeper, Azaz can’t get the ball out from under his feet to lob home from distance. When the effort eventually comes, it’s harmless. Arsenal are rattled, though.
40 min: Odegaard prepares to tear off into space down the right. But he’s penalised for shoving Jander in the back. The Arsenal captain is livid, his frustration betraying him.
39 min: Bree’s delivery is no good, though.
38 min: White’s misery continues, as he clumsily brings down Scienza, just to the left of the Arsenal box. A free kick in a very dangerous position.
37 min: White has the good grace to look embarrassed. He completely mistimed his jump, and Stewart chested down and finished with aplomb. St Mary’s is pumping!
GOAL! Southampton 1-0 Arsenal (Stewart 35)
Scienza, in the left-back position, starts a counter attack. The ball’s switched to Bree on the right. He loops into the Arsenal box. White leaps, misjudges the flight, and the ball sails over his head. It drops to Stewart on the penalty spot. Stewart stays calm, chesting down and steering a shot into the bottom right! Lovely sweeping move, such a calm finish, but what an error by White!
34 min: Fellows twists and turns out on the right to make himself some space. Cute play, but the cross that follows is no good. Saints continue to show promise whenever they get upfield.
33 min: White’s lax backpass nearly lets Stewart in. Kepa hacks clear just in time.
32 min: The resulting corner is a non-event, Norgaard penalised for some pushing and shoving.
31 min: Havertz dances in from the right and aims for the far corner. His shot takes a deflection off Wood and loops towards the top left. Peretz is out of the game, but the ball misses the frame of the goal by inches.
