Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu made his first start for Southampton since September as the managerless Saints won just their third league match of the season in the Sky Bet Championship with a 2-1 victory at Queens Park Rangers.
The 23-year-old Dubliner had not made an appearance for the club since the 3-1 defeat at Hull City on 20 September.
But, in their first match since the sacking of Will Still, he was restored to the Southampton line-up, with Ireland left back Ryan Manning also starting against his former club, and Finn Azaz coming off the bench for the last 24 minutes.
Teenager Jay Robinson's deflected strike put the visitors ahead early in the second half and Leo Scienza's brilliant goal doubled their lead.
Rumarn Burrell pulled a goal back but Rangers were unable to find an equaliser, slumping to a third consecutive defeat.
Thierry Small's sensational early strike set the tone as Preston moved up to fourth after beating Swansea 2-1 at Deepdale.
The 21-year-old let fly with an eighth-minute arrow from 30 yards to open the scoring and Milutin Osmajic got the decisive strike with a somewhat scruffier second after 49 minutes, his fourth goal of the season but his first since 23 August.
Eom Ji-Sung came off the bench to halve the arrears with a curling strike from range with 10 minutes of regular time to go but North End held out for victory.
Sheffield Wednesday and Norwich battled to a 1-1 draw in a lively game which saw plenty of second-half goalmouth action but did little to improve the struggling sides' fortunes.
After Barry Bannan found the net with a fine individual goal early on, Norwich rallied after the break, with substitute Mathias Kvistgaarden equalising to end the Canaries' six-match losing run.
Arthur Okonkwo made two superb second-half saves to earn Wrexham a point in a 0-0 draw at goal-shy Portsmouth.
Pompey are the lowest goalscorers in the division but fired 18 shots on the Welsh side's goal, seven of which were on target.
Josh Murphy's near-post stinger and Ibane Bowat's point-blank header were brilliantly saved by Okonkwo.
It meant Portsmouth have still only scored 10 times in the league this season and have just a single win in nine, with Wrexham losing only once in nine league outings to sit 14th.
Additional reporting: PA
Watch Republic of Ireland v Uzbekistan in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup on Saturday from 3.35pm on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport
Watch the Sports Direct FAI Cup final, Shamrock Rovers v Cork City, on Sunday from 2pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Listen to the RTÉ Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
