Carlos Alcaraz lifts Southampton off bottom and has Leicester looking down

In future, Carlos Alcaraz will probably not be celebrating goals with a knee slide. The 20-year-old Argentinian’s first-half goal could prove vital in Southampton’s fight against relegation but in launching himself across the St Mary’s turf, he endangered his part in the dogfight to come.

Victory over Leicester, a team throwing off any pretension of being too good to go down with a dreadful performance, gave Southampton a fighting chance, but they may need a player of such obvious talent. News of his wounded knee will be keenly awaited.

Alcaraz’s goal, created by Che Adams, lifted a game desperately low on quality. It had been low on expectation, too. Both teams were returning to Premier League action after FA Cup defeats to lower-league opposition – Grimsby for Saints, Blackburn for Leicester – categorised as shocking but not entirely surprising.

While Southampton’s slide has taken in the psychodrama of Nathan Jones’ doomed, mercifully short reign, Leicester’s slump has been less heralded. Kicking off three points above the relegation zone, Brendan Rodgers’ standing among the Foxes faithful is diminishing. His team continue to be jarringly over-reliant on James Maddison, who after illness was fit to start. Maddison’s teammates had taken one point from a possible 18 in his post-World Cup absences. There comes a time when injuries and a relative lack of transfer business no longer sustain as viable excuses.

Leaning heavily on star players has been a trait of Rodgers’ managerial career. Maddison’s prominence mirrors that of Luis Suárez and Steven Gerrard at Liverpool and Jamie Vardy earlier in his Leicester reign. Vardy’s star has fallen so far that he was on the subs’ bench, having not started a league match since the 2-2