So the day we could see coming a thousand miles away finally arrived last Sunday as The Saints finally fell through the Premier League trapdoor after a 3-1 loss at White Hart Lane.
Blimey Southampton, as if securing the earliest relegation in Premier League history wasn’t bad enough you had to have it confirmed at Spurs of all places. What an awful way to go.
Earlier in the week it had all looked so much rosier for Saints as they came within seconds of their 3rd win on the season, in their 30th game, before conceding a 90th minute equaliser off the head of Matheus Franca.
They held on for the draw though and secured the point that clawed them up to double figures for the season, a huge achievement for the sorry, sinking Saints.
Now they have made it to double figures they have one goal left to aim for, Derby County’s 2007/08 season tally of 11 points. Many say that Derby were the worst team in Premier League history and Southampton have 7 matches left to keep it that way.
Seven opportunities to secure a whole point or two, dependent on whether matching or beating Derby’s tally is the goal, would be more than enough for most teams but this is Southampton. Even with 4 of those 7 taking place at St. Marys none of them look even vaguely winnable for the hosts.
The first of those home games is tomorrow against Champion’s League Quarter finalists Aston Villa, who will be looking to take out their frustration on the South coasters after a chastening defeat in Paris on Wednesday.
After losing to the Villains tomorrow they’re home again on the 26th playing host to a Fulham team who will be fighting hard to close their 5-point gap to the top 5 and Champions League qualification for next season. An easy 3 points in Hampshire will be too tempting for the cottagers to turn down especially with revenge for a 0-0 draw in the return match motivating the Londoners.
Their penultimate home match lands on May 10th and whilst most teams will have nothing to play for by then, which might give underdogs a chance of securing a shocking win, The Saints have no such luck with their opponents. Manchester City have had a disappointing season by their standards, but they always finish strong and with a Champions League place still within their reach I expect them to add the one tradition to St. Marys that they’ve avoided so far this season, the 9-0 hammering.
As for their swansong match, they’re hosting the Arsenal team that swept aside Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League Quarter final this week and have conceded 26 goals all season. I have only one thing to say about the host’s chances of scoring points on the final day…. good luck with that!
With their hopes of any further points at home dealt with it’s time to turn our attention to where The Saints might pick up points, their travels.
Not their first travel coming up though, cause although West Ham have only won twice at home in 2025 the atmosphere the home fans can create at the London stadium will prove far too much for the fragile Saints. The passion of West Ham fans is legendary and if in nothing else gets Graham Potter’s team over the line, the fear of letting those fans down will.
It is also the passion of the fans that rule out the chance of away points on Saints final travel day of the season.
Sure they secured their first win of the season hosting the Toffees back in November but that Everton team was a different beast to the one The Saints will face at the final outing of Goodison Park on May 18th. David Moyes has supercharged their season since returning to the Everton dugout and the shambolic Saints stand no chance of stealing the show on the final outing of their historic stadium with the full force of Scouse fury backing the Blues.
So that’s 6 of the 7 games ruled out as points scoring opportunities for Southampton and if all those predictions are prescient then there is one true opportunity for the Hampshire side to avoid being the worst team in Premier League history.
That chance presents itself at the King Power Stadium against Ruud Van Nisterooy’s hapless Leicester City team on Saturday 3rd May…. The Saint’s ‘Destiny Day’.
This is the best chance for Southampton to secure the 3 points that would lift them up above Derby’s 11 for the simple reason that Leicester have been almost as abysmal as them all season.
The Foxes are doomed to join Southampton in dropping through the trapdoor and haven’t even managed to score a goal in a league match since they beat Spurs 2-1 in London on January 26th, Saints have scored 8 goals in that time.
Further omens for a positive time at the foxes den are that Saints only went down 3-2 in the return game back in October after a penalty and red card 16 minutes from time bought the scores back to 2-2, in a game they lead for a full 36 minutes, before Jordan Ayew capped off the Foxes’ comeback in stoppage time against the 10 men.
To have gone so close at home against a Foxes team that had scored in every game so far that season and were looking half decent for a good run, surely they have to believe they can grab a win at full strength against a team that is stuttering down the trapdoor with them.
Leicester are a shell of the team that won the title 9 seasons ago and are the only other team in the league that have scored less than a goal a game, 25 to 23 in Leicester’s favour. The Foxes’ defensive record is as abysmal as the Saints too, with 70 goals conceded to the southerners’ 74.
Add to that the fact that the Foxes only have 17 points themselves and are the only team in worse form than the Saints it’s clear that this is the game Southampton have to target.
Good luck to the Saints on the 3rd of May, their Destiny Day.
The Football tourist 