Stoke City 0-1 Southampton: Stuart Armstrong free-kick wins it for Saints

An excellent Stuart Armstrong free-kick earned Southampton a tense victory against Stoke City at the bet365 Stadium.

Both sides saw dangerous chances deflected off target early in the second half, while Travers did well to deny Kamaldeen Sulemana in a game of few opportunities.

Stoke teenager Nathan Lowe had a shout for a penalty ignored by referee James Bell after appearing to be fouled by Jan Bednarek, as the Saints hung on for their second successive win since ending a four-game losing run.

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Victory moved them up to ninth in the table and equal on points with three sides inside the top six.

Stoke's fifth defeat in seven league games left them 17th, just two points above the relegation spots.

Saints boss Russell Martin named an unchanged side following Saturday's win at Leeds, while Potters boss Alex Neil turned to emerging talents as he made three changes.

Among them were first starts for 19-year-old defender Junior Tchamadeu and 18-year-old forward Lowe, who came came off the bench three days earlier to score the late winner in their stunning fightback victory at Bristol City.

Lowe was the only one to call Saints goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu into action before the break, with the teenager's header the only real chance at either end before Armstrong sensationally struck with his set-piece in the 41st minute.

In a lively start to the second half, both sides had dangerous efforts deflected off target in the space of a minute - with a header from Armstrong followed by a shot from Mehdi Leris.

It took a fine stop from Travers to prevent Sulemana adding a second for the visitors after 55 minutes.

Stoke's Ben Wilmot was injured when he collided with the post in his attempt to cover his keeper as Travers made that save.

The home fans were then left furious when Lowe was denied a penalty as Stoke searched for a leveller.

Bazunu ensured all three points for the visitors and their first clean sheet of the season when he foiled Wouter Burger in stoppage time.

Stoke City boss Alex Neil:

"I think all you ever ask your team to do and individual players is to give everything they've got and I thought we got that.

"I don't think we can have any complaints in terms of the efforts of the players.

"We got undone by one moment of quality where the ball ends up in the top corner.

"I think certainly if you look at the foul that they get for their goal and you look at the foul [on Lowe] in the box, you're going to compare both in terms of contact.

"I think if you look at the two directives at the start of the season, one was based around soft contact for fouls and not buying into soft contact, which I thought for the first foul was really soft, and the other was was timewasting.

"I didn't think any of the directives this evening were carried out well enough in terms of the game at all."

Southampton boss Russell Martin told BBC Radio Solent:

"The most pleasing thing is that I think we played brilliantly tonight.

"We should have scored a couple more goals. Some of the moves we had from back to front, I watched with so much pride and enjoyment. I hope the supporters did as well.

"I think the players enjoyed it and when we had to, we fought and fought really hard.

"We took a lot of fight out of them with the ball and showed incredible moments of composure when the game got a bit messy."