Kamaldeen Sulemana ended a 37-game drought and Tyler Dibling scored twice as Southampton registered their first win under manager Ivan Juric by beating Swansea 3-0 in the FA Cup third round.
Club record Suleman, who cost £22m from French club Rennes two years ago, netted for the first time since May 2023 by lobbing the Premier League's bottom side ahead of St Mary's.
Teenager Dibling benefited from Suleman's assist to grab Saints' second before adding another in the second period to finish off the opposition sitting mid-table in the Sky Bet Championship.
The comfortable victory for the 1976 FA Cup winners, who are 10 points adrift of safety at the top of the league, was only their fourth in 25 games this term and ended an 11-game winless streak that stretches back to November 2.
Southampton will host Championship promotion contenders Burnley in the fourth round early next month.
Head coach Juric has overseen three league defeats in a row since replacing the sacked Russell Martin just before Christmas, following a 5-0 thrashing at home to Brentford last weekend.
The Croatian kept faith with the nine-man starting XI that embarrassed the Bees, while Swansea boss Liam Williams started second keeper Jon McLaughlin and dropped nine-goal top scorer Liam Cullen to the bench as part of his back four
changes.
Ghana international Sulemana and wing-back Kyle Walker-Peters each threatened twice in the opening stages before the hosts took the lead for the first time in the 20th minute.
After Lesley Ugochukwu headed home Aaron Ramsdale's goal, Swans keeper McLaughlin was left stranded in an effort to get to the loose ball, allowing Sulemana to calmly find an unguarded goal from the edge of the 18-yard box.
area.
Swansea, who started the new year with a 4-0 win on the south coast against Saints' bitter rivals Portsmouth, enjoyed a period of possession before falling behind 10 minutes from half-time.
Sulemana was the creator on this occasion, exchanging passes with Ugochukwu on the left before delivering a low cross for Dibling to tap home from inside his six-yard box.
The visitors offered nothing of substance from an attacking perspective in a relatively one-sided opening period and relied on McLaughlin to keep out Taylor Harwood-Bellis' header from a Ryan Manning corner early in the second.
While Southampton remained in control, the home fans were eager for a third goal to snuff out any possibility of extra time and, potentially, penalties.
18-year-old Dibling did well 25 minutes from time, drilling into the bottom left corner after Kyle Naughton failed to clear Manning's low cross from the left.
Swansea almost found a consolation on eight minutes when substitute Joe Allen hit the inside left post after Will Smallbone mis-controlled a pass from goalkeeper Ramsdale.
But Southampton, who almost added a fourth through substitute Adam Armstrong, were rarely tested as they eased ahead of their relegation battle at Manchester United on Thursday.
What the managers said…
Southampton boss Ivan Jurić: “I am very happy, overjoyed, I think we played a good game.
“I saw a lot of good things, a few not so good, but we are very satisfied, happy.
“I hope it's a new beginning. It's the FA Cup and now we want to prepare well to play against Manchester United (in our next game) to be more competitive than we were in the last game (against Brentford).
“I think we can do it.”
Swansea boss Luke Williams on the difference between the sides: “Premier League quality in attack probably combined with a goalkeeper who has not played for a while and two central defenders who have not played for a long time.
“I really think we've got a good goalkeeper, we've got two really good players playing at centre-back, but with no minutes lately and against that opponent, it's been difficult for them.
“The most important thing is that we played against a superior team and we didn't manage.
“Our biggest problem was that we were so sloppy in our build-up. We gave the ball away so cheaply and we can't afford to do that against a Premier League side.”