Southampton draws Spurs, stays in bottom 3

Southampton was left in the Premier League’s bottom three after losing an early lead to draw 1-1 at home to fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Despite having gone 10 league games without a win and losing 5-2 at Spurs four weeks ago, Southampton started brightly and deservedly went ahead after quarter of an hour.

Ryan Bertrand overlapped powerfully down the left and from his low cross Tottenham’s Colombian defender Davinson Sanchez diverted the ball past his goalkeeper Michel Vorm, who was deputizing for Hugo Lloris.

It took Harry Kane barely three minutes to equalize, rising to head in a corner by Ben Davies and register his 99th Premier League goal.

Tottenham had needed a two-goal win to move into fourth place above Liverpool, which visits Swansea City on Monday.

It became a frustrating day for Spurs in the end, with manager Mauricio Pochettino failing to complete a hat-trick of wins at the ground where he made his name in English football as Southampton manager in the 2013/14 season.

“We made a lot of mistakes in possession and in the end the result was fair,” he said. Southampton was happy enough with the draw. “It was an end to end game and we are pleased to come away with a point,” Bertrand said.

“Looking at our remaining fixtures, today was a bonus point on our journey.”

Elsewhere, Watford sacked manager Marco Silva on Sunday after a poor run of results and blamed a rival Premier League club’s “unwarranted approach” to sign the Portuguese earlier this season as the catalyst for the decision.

British media reported that Everton had targeted Silva in its quest to replace Dutchman Ronald Koeman before appointing former England manager Sam Allardyce in November.

Spaniard Javi Gracia, formerly of Malaga and Russian club Rubin Kazan was named by local media as the man set to replace him.

“This has been a difficult decision and one not taken lightly,”