Five things we learned from the weekend football: Saints right to stand by boss

1 Southampton reaping the rewards of continuity

There have been some fascinating managerial changes during this Premier League season but Southampton deserve great credit for resisting the temptation to fire Ralph Hasenhuttl during a desperate run of form in the autumn.

The low point was October's 9-0 home defeat to Leicester and as Saints trudged off after that humiliation few would have predicted their subsequent improvement.

Saturday's commanding 2-0 victory over Aston Villa, in which they had 28 attempts on goal to Villa's four, was Southampton's eighth victory in their last 14 league matches.

They are playing with real verve and confidence under Hasenhuttl and the Austrian will be delighted that the goalscoring burden on striker Danny Ings has finally been eased, with Saints' top scorer notching only one of their last seven league goals.

2 Fixture list should boost belief in Wolves's top-four ambitions

The Molineux faithful have enjoyed a couple of cosy wins with last Thursday's 4-0 thumping of Espanyol in the Europa League followed by a 3-0 victory over Norwich on Sunday.

Nuno's men are up to eighth, two points behind Manchester United in fifth and five adrift of Chelsea, but they should be pleased to be in striking distance after a tough run of fixtures.

Their nine Premier League games since Christmas have included two narrow defeats to runaway leaders Liverpool, 3-2 wins over Manchester City and in-form Southampton, and goalless draws away to United and at home to Leicester, when they were harshly denied a goal by VAR.

Having come through that testing run of games, the fixture list looks far kinder for Wolves in the next few weeks. Sunday's trip to out-of-sorts Tottenham is followed by Brighton (h), West Ham (a), Bournemouth (h) and Aston Villa (a) and the league table could look even brighter for Wanderers after those assignments.

3 Tottenham cannot afford to dwell on injury absentees

The Stamford Bridge scoreboard read Chelsea 2 Tottenham 1 at full-time on Saturday but that flattered Spurs after a miserable return to west London for Jose Mourinho.

Of course Spurs are missing Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son, but they cannot afford to feel sorry for themselves about their injury woes when there is still so much to play for.

This job may well be Mourinho's last chance to prove he can still compete in the Premier League and it is up to him to find a way to overcome the loss of his two star forwards.

There is plenty of attacking quality in the rest of the squad and Spurs had won their previous three Premier League games, including a 2-0 victory over Manchester City, before their underwhelming display at Chelsea.

4 Great escape could be on for Barnsley in Sky Bet Championship

Barnsley are still fighting for survival at the bottom of the Sky Bet Championship and their 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough on Saturday was a worrying result for Boro and several other clubs just above the bottom three.

The scoreline may not have been as spectacular as the Tykes' previous outing, a 3-0 win at promotion-chasing Fulham, but it was a well-deserved three points.

Barnsley won the shot count 18-5 and Boro couldn't muster a shot on target as the home side's three centre-backs snuffed out the threat of Ashley Fletcher, Britt Assombalonga and sub Rudy Gestede.

Gerhard Struber's side are 13-5 to stay up but they are heading in the right direction and have Boro, Stoke, Huddersfield and Wigan within six points of them.

5 Coventry's narrow wins bode well for League One promotion challenge

The promotion race in Sky Bet League One is likely to be decided by fine margins so Coventry's knack of winning tight games is a major boost to their chances.

Cov extended their terrific run of form to nine wins in 11 games with a 2-1 victory at Rochdale on Saturday and five of their last six league wins have been by a single-goal margin.

They are up to second in the table and face a huge game against leaders Rotherham on Tuesday. The Millers won October's reverse fixture 4-0 but the Sky Blues' improvement means the return should be a far tighter contest.

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