Faootball: Brown puts Southampton in the dark

IAN BRANFOOT'S footing at The Dell grew all the more precarious last night as Shrewsbury, eighth in the Third Division, sent Southampton and their beleaguered manager spiralling out of the Coca-Cola Cup, writes Rob Steen.

Trailing 1-0 after the away leg, Shrewsbury levelled matters through Mark Taylor after 36 minutes. Kenny Monkou compounded the Premiership strugglers' angst three minutes later when sent off following a second set-to with Dean Spink, and with 19 minutes remaining, the left-winger, Mike Brown, playing on with a broken nose, volleyed the winner.

Tottenham endured some blushes at home to Second Division Burnley but prevailed at the last, a 73rd-minute volley from the substitute, David Howells, supplemented by an injury-time header from Teddy Sheringham, bringing Ossie Ardiles' side a 3-1 aggregate victory, albeit only after Colin Calderwood had cleared off the line and Kevin Russell had struck a post with the scores level. Gordon Durie hurled abuse at the Spurs' bench upon being substituted, while Tottenham's England Youth international, Darren Caskey, was shown the red card after a clash with Les Thompson.

The main drama of the night was to be found at the New Den, where three players were sent off and Millwall overcame an early 2-0 deficit against Watford to sneak home 4-3 thanks to Etienne Verveer's strike a minute from the end of extra time.

Scotland's Old Firm suffered at the hands of the new regime, Rangers losing 2-1 to Motherwell at Ibrox and St Johnstone increasing the pressure on Liam Brady via a 2-1 home win over Celtic.

Another candidate for unemployment is the Lazio coach, Dino Zoff, whose side were jeered after a humiliating 2-0 home defeat by Third Division Avellino in an Italian Cup second-round first-leg tie.