Southampton 1-0 Norwich City

Shane Long capped his 100th appearance for Southampton by bundling in a stoppage-time winner to see off Norwich in a dire FA Cup third-round replay.

The Saints striker pounced at the second attempt after keeper Michael McGovern pushed out his initial header.

Championship visitors Norwich, who have won just once in seven games, did not manage a single shot on target.

Saints will now host Premier League rivals Arsenal in the fourth round on Saturday, 28 January (17:30 GMT).

Relive all of Wednesday's FA Cup third-round replays

Puel the new Tinkerman?

Saints have struggled for consistency since manager Claude Puel arrived from Nice last summer - which is perhaps not surprising given the Frenchman has made 187 changes to his starting XI in 32 games in charge.

Despite the Premier League club hoping to arrest an alarming slide of one win in six matches, Puel was not afraid to show confidence in his young players for the visit of struggling Championship side Norwich.

Four top-flight defeats on the bounce have been tempered somewhat by more positive cup results - the 2-2 draw at Carrow Road followed by a EFL Cup semi-final first-leg win against Liverpool.

Yet it was not a surprise to see Puel - who has yet to name an identical starting XI in consecutive matches since arriving at St Mary's - ring the changes again.

With the Premier League trip to Leicester and a return leg against the Reds looming, the Frenchman rested several experienced players and named a youthful starting XI that contained six club academy graduates with an average age of just 21 years and four months.

The result was a disjointed performance in front of just 13,517 fans at the 32,500-capacity St Mary's Stadium.

The hosts lacked the quality to be incisive against a Norwich side content to sit deep until some late pressure finally told when Republic of Ireland international Long scrambled in Sam McQueen's left-wing cross.

The replay failed to catch the imagination of the Southampton fans, despite ticket prices being cut to £12 for adults and £5 for Under 18s

Fonte 'has opportunities to leave'

Southampton were again without captain Jose Fonte, who has been left out since submitting a transfer request at the start of the month.

West Ham are the latest club to have been linked with a move for the 33-year-old and Puel admitted after the game that Fonte could leave soon.

"I think he has some opportunities: he studies these opportunities," Puel said.

"And for Southampton it's the same. We will see if Jose leaves Southampton; we will see over the next few days."

Canaries far from chirpy

Norwich started life back in the Championship as one of the promotion favourites, backed heavily to finish in the top six and mount a challenge for an instant return to the Premier League.

Everything appeared rosy when they lost just two of their opening 12 matches to set the early pace.

But their season has disintegrated in the past few months.

Canaries boss Alex Neil is taking the brunt of the blame for the malaise, with angry fans venting their frustrations at the Scotsman after the weekend defeat at the Championship's bottom club Rotherham.

Neil's starting line-up made it clear the league is his priority, responding with eight changes to his side for the game at St Mary's ahead of Saturday's home game against Wolves.

His side set up with a 5-4-1 formation that left Northern Ireland striker Kyle Lafferty isolated on a rare start.

And their lack of ambition - that almost appeared like a willingness to simply nullify Saints and take their chances with penalties - eventually saw them punished as Long's late strike continued their poor form.

Post-match reaction

Southampton manager Claude Puel:

"Our first half did not have a good enough rhythm, and it was important in the second half to control the game and the ball.

"Of course, we should have scored before we did, but we prevented extra-time and this is important for the recovery of the players.

"All the players kept a good attitude, with good concentration. We gave no chances to the opponent during the whole 90 minutes, and in the second half we had many opportunities.

"We were perhaps unlucky, or not clinical enough, but the most important thing was to qualify."

Norwich manager Alex Neil:

"We set up to be nice and compact. I wouldn't necessarily say the result was fair but we wanted to create more.

"We came with a gameplan to sit behind the ball.

"We had all our midfielders suspended, injured or at the African Nations Cup.

"I thought we applied ourselves well. I can't fault the boys for the effort."