Southampton manager Nathan Jones secured the biggest success of his brief tenure, advancing to the EFL Cup semi-finals with a well-deserved victory over Manchester City. Jones has fought for Saints fans’ favor since joining from Luton Town, but his rating has undoubtedly risen with the manner in which the Premier League strugglers have maintained their fine cup run. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola rested important players such as Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne in preparation for this weekend’s derby against Manchester United at Old Trafford, but nothing should detract from a lively Southampton performance. Sekou Maras’ clean finish after 23 minutes and Moussa Djenepos’ stunning second five minutes later settled the game in the first half. Is Jones shifting the tide? The swaths of vacant seats for a cup quarter-final at home to Manchester City hinted at the atmosphere at St Mary’s, with Southampton fans disgruntled with Jones’s hiring and his bad start, but towards the end, there was genuine jubilation around the stadium following this amazing win. Jones still has a lot of work to do to get the Saints out of the relegation zone and win over the skeptics, but this will benefit him and his players on every level. And with Croatia international Mislav Orsic, fresh from the World Cup, making a late debut as a substitute after joining Dinamo Zagreb, the excellent midfielder Carlos Alcaraz of Manchester City was taken off guard. Manchester City landed on the rain-soaked south coast as hot favorites to advance to the EFL Cup final four against struggling Saints, but the tables were reversed as the poor Premier League winners got what they deserved. Guardiola made adjustments, although Kyle Walker, Aymeric Laporte, Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan, Joao Cancelo, Phil Foden, and World Cup champion Julian Alvarez remained in the starting lineup. It had enough quality to do better, and it was a particularly dismal night for deputy keeper Ortega and Kalvin Phillips, who was given his maiden start but was so poor.
