Saints compound West Brom troubles with 2-0 victory

(Reuters) - Southampton beat an insipid West Bromwich Albion 2-0 in the Premier League with goals either side of halftime from Moussa Djenepo and Oriol Romeu at St Mary's Stadium on Sunday to leave the visitors in danger of dropping into the relegation zone.

Southampton's second consecutive win and clean sheet moved them up to 10th in the standings while winless West Brom remained in 17th place with a point after four games, with the bottom teams having a game in hand.

"We have been very clinical today. Good game management in the game," Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuettl told BT Sport. "The pressing was nearly perfect today, we never had the feeling of having little bit problems. I felt we were well organised.

"It's absolutely important to have other guys scoring. If (Danny) Ings is not scoring the other guys need to do so. It was good we had subs to put in like (Shane) Long, who helped us in the end with his quality on the pitch.

Southampton had a couple of chances to take an early lead but goalkeeper Sam Johnstone stood strong to make reflex saves to deny Ryan Bertrand, Stuart Armstrong and a Che Adams strike from close range inside the first 15 minutes.

But Johnstone could do nothing when Moussa Djenepo received the ball in the box and executed a sharp turn to shrug off two defenders and fire a low shot into the bottom corner, giving the home side the lead four minutes before the break.

Romeu then produced a stunner with 20 minutes to play when he leapt into the air to latch on to an Armstrong cross, firing home a thunderous volley for his first goal in 50 games for the club.

"I'm not used to hitting the ball that well," Romeu said. "I had space when the ball came to me and it ended up in the back of the net. Happy for the team and on we go, feeling good."

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Giles Elgood)