Master's magical moment

Southampton 1

Le Tissier 80 pen

Blackburn Rovers 0

Attendance: 14,793

COMETH the hour and Southampton's main man has too often been nowhere to be found this season. Yesterday, when a seventh defeat in eight league games would have put his team in the bottom three, Matthew Le Tissier, the weaver, finally spun his magic again.

Blackburn were transfixed and eventually beaten by his penalty 10 minutes from the end of a predictably tense afternoon, its drama intensified by the re-appearance after 12 months of Bruce Grobbelaar in Southampton's goal.

If the champions' hopes of playing European football again next season have now been finally undermined, Southampton still have much to do. It is the time of year when even the most sterling performance - and yesterday's effort came into that category - can be cancelled out within 48 hours.

The victory, welcome and deserved as it was, will lose much of its glitter if Southampton take nothing from Aston Villa tomorrow before meeting Manchester United and Newcastle in the following two games.

Grobbelaar's promotion above Dave Beasant may also be short-lived. A pulled muscle hampered his kicking, and in the second half the capacity crowd winced at every clearance. So did the defender Jason Dodd after being forced to retrieve one of them from Alan Shearer's feet with a painful block.

Before starting a match for the first time since 2 April last year, Grobbelaar had hammed things up for photographers and spectators alike. He made a confident first catch only five seconds into the game but was beaten 11 minutes later as Jeff Kenna ploughed through his old club's defence to shoot against the inside of a post. That was the visitors' only threat of the first half, for all their patient possession.

Southampton's manager, Dave Merrington, had decided, in his words, "to freshen things up", which was a mild metaphor to use after six defeats out of seven at such a critical time of the season. The freshening process involved restoring David Hughes, Neil Heaney and Gordon Watson as well as Grobbelaar, but it was Le Tissier who blew a breath of fresh air through the cobwebs of the past months.

Using the centre circle as a base rather than a dwelling place, he led from the middle, venturing forth in all directions, floating in crosses and pinging in free-kicks and corners - 15 of the latter in all to Blackburn's three.

His old friend Tim Flowers, beaten by Le Tissier's goal of the season at Ewood Park last year, was relieved to watch two similar efforts drift wide and to clutch a much lower one that bounced just in front of him.

As the second half wore on, it seemed that, cruelly, the Channel Islander might be frustrated. He dribbled to the by-line and put the ball on to Neil Shipperley's toe: Henning Berg whipped it off again. Francis Benali met Le Tissier's umpteenth corner with a fierce header that was just too high.

Then Shipperley, turning in the area, had his shirt tugged by Chris Coleman, and Le Tissier potted his first Premiership goal since 4 November. "He needed a goal more than anyone else in the League," said Southampton's director of football, Lawrie McMenemy. Yesterday, nobody deserved one more.

Blackburn, having increased their total of away goals by 50 per cent - from six to nine - in the previous game at Tottenham, had begun to play with a touch more confidence, and there was one more dodgy moment for Southampton before the relief of the final whistle and confirmation of defeats for three of their relegation rivals. Tim Sherwood's header in the last minute hung in the air for an awfully long time before dropping wide.