Impressive Saints deny Pardew winning return

Southampton 2 Newcastle 0

His tired team, weakened by injury and suspension, was no match for a Southampton side fired by the prospect of back-to-back victories in the top flight for the first time since 2004, and the warmth of the welcome from his former supporters disappeared with the first blast of the referee’s whistle.

Southampton leapt out of the bottom three, and, significantly, to within three points of Newcastle, who have won only once in the past eight games, losing the last three — the worst such sequence since September 2008. It was an indictment of Newcastle’s lack of firepower that this was also Southampton’s first clean sheet of the season.