Maybe more clubs should follow Southampton’s lead and have a meltdown, because it has not done them much harm. People were queuing up to write off Southampton after a summer in which they lost half a team and their manager, Mauricio Pochettino, but Ronald Koeman’s side are on a mission to make their critics think twice before being so premature in the future. Clubs in crisis are not supposed to be second in the Premier League, nor are they supposed to have strikers who can settle a match with an overhead kick of such brilliance and athleticism that it would not have made a difference if there had been two Robert Greens in goal for Queens Park Rangers.

Graziano Pellè by name, Pelé by nature. Southampton were still reeling after Charlie Austin’s excellent volley for QPR had made it 1-1 when Shane Long, just on as a substitute, sent a tame cross to the far post from the right. Dusan Tadic, hoping to do no more than keep the move alive, headed the ball high in the air. Then Pellè, holding off Steven Caulker, controlled the ball. Then he contorted his body in a way that did not seem humanly possible. Then the ball was looping past a stunned Green and into the top-left corner. Then everyone in the stadium picked their jaws off the ground. “It will be one of the best goals of the season,” Koeman said.

It was a crushing blow for QPR yet although they could bemoan the quality of Pellè’s finish, Harry Redknapp’s side were not unlucky to lose, even though Niko Kranjcar almost rescued a point with a free-kick that struck the woodwork. “We kept going,” Redknapp said after a disappointing return to St Mary’s, but only because Southampton wasted so many chances.

Redknapp is too long in the tooth to have been affected by the inevitable abuse from Southampton fans, who have not forgiven him for his part in their relegation in 2005 or his subsequent departure to Portsmouth. He took heart from QPR’s persistence and there were a few nervy moments for Southampton to endure at the end. Yet this was still another defeat on the road for QPR and secretly Redknapp must have been grateful that Southampton’s profligacy meant his side did not suffer as much as they did in the recent capitulations at Manchester United and Tottenham.

Southampton, whose players are enjoying life so much under Koeman that they gave up their day off after beating Arsenal in the Capital One Cup, tore into QPR from the start and the visitors’ cause was not helped when they lost Sandro in the 11th minute after a clash of heads with Sadio Mané. “The doctors now have to err on the side of caution,” Redknapp said.

Mané, making his league debut for Southampton, was a busy menace and Tadic, who hit the post, Pellè and Morgan Schneiderlin all wasted opportunities, while QPR did not threaten until first-half stoppage time, Austin drifting a shot wide.

That was a glimpse of the foolproof QPR plan: be terrible, lull Southampton into a sense of false security, pinch a goal. Yet the breakthrough finally arrived after 54 minutes when Mané’s glorious backheel found the onrushing Ryan Bertrand, who drilled a low shot underneath Green for his first Southampton goal.

Tadic and Victor Wanyama then went close to adding a second for Southampton, before QPR equalised when Austin showed outstanding technique to trap Eduardo Vargas’s cross, swivel and crash a volley past Fraser Forster.

QPR thought they had got away with it. Pellè thought otherwise.