Strand Larsen’s double at Southampton moves Wolves nine points clear of drop | Premier League

Vítor Pereira said he is feeling the challenge of keeping Wolves in the Premier League “with my heart” after they took a significant step towards survival with a 2-1 victory at rock-bottom Southampton.

Jørgen Strand Larsen’s double moved Wanderers nine points clear of third-bottom Ipswich, with Paul Onuachu pulling a goal back for Southampton, who are now without a win since the start of February.

“It was very important for us in this moment in the season,” Pereira said. “I think it was difficult for sure, we suffered a bit in the last 10 minutes because we wanted to keep the three points.

“I think in this moment it was important to make the difference and have the difference to the other teams. Nine points is better than six [the gap to the bottom three]. We can keep the nine points and try to be consistent. In this league we can’t sleep, we can’t go into games thinking that we can wait for results, we must fight, we must deserve the victory.

“This club doesn’t deserve relegation, the people of this club don’t deserve it. I’m feeling this with my heart and it’s a project I want to take with both hands.”

The early signs suggested it could be Southampton’s day as they looked to claim their first victory since 1 February when they beat their fellow strugglers Ipswich. Lesley Ugochukwu drove into space and laid the ball off to Joe Aribo but the midfielder blazed his shot from the edge of the area over the crossbar.

Typical of their season, any positives were outweighed by poor defending as Southampton fell behind. The Wolves winger Jean‑Ricner Bellegarde was allowed all the time in the world to whip a cross on to the head of Strand Larsen and he nodded past Aaron Ramsdale from close range to open the scoring after 19 minutes.

Pereira, who was full of praise for the Norwegian striker, said: “In the last game he didn’t perform at this level because he got an injury. He broke a bone in his hand two days before Everton but he told us he wanted to try. For a striker it’s impossible to do work with a broken hand.

“Today, one week after, he adapted, he didn’t have the same pain as the Everton game, he’s a player with a strong personality and he proved that he’s a team player and he has quality. It was not only the goals, for me he worked defensively and offensively.”

Ivan Juric’s decision to replace the midfielder Mateus Fernandes at half-time prompted boos and chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing” from the home crowd, before Strand Larsen doubled Wolves’ lead early in the second half. The towering forward Onuachu was beaten in the air by Emmanuel Agbadou and, after a few simple forward passes, the ball found its way to the unmarked Wolves striker on the edge of the box and he drilled his shot into the bottom‑left corner.

Tyler Dibling’s individual skill had been on display all afternoon and after the 19-year-old cut inside and struck a post, Onuachu was on hand to pull one back for Saints in the 75th minute. Wolves’ tight shape paid dividends in the final stages as they stifled their opponents during six added minutes to claim all three points.

Southampton have nine points, still two short of Derby’s total in 2007-08, the lowest tally in a single Premier League campaign.

“I was a lot more optimistic, of course,” Juric said when asked if he thought the job would be this challenging when he took over from Russell Martin in December. “It’s a tough moment for everybody, we were a lot more optimistic and now it’s difficult.

“We’re really disappointed. I don’t know what to say, there’s always something missing. We started good but we conceded after 20 minutes and it’s really hard.”