Opposition briefing: Everything you need to know about Southampton

Match previews

1 Feb 2025

Crystal Palace travel to Southampton in their first fixture of April on Wednesday, (19:45 BST) - check out all you need to know about the Saints below!

Factfile

Manager: Ivan Jurić
Position: 20th
Nickname: The Saints
Ground: St Mary's Stadium
Founded: 1885 (139 years ago)

What’s the story?

Southampton’s return to the Premier League has been anything but plain sailing, as they spent the entire season at the foot of the table and are now firmly cut adrift from the rest.

Having beaten Leeds United in the Championship play-off final last season, they have since won just a two league games – at home to Everton and away at Ipswich.

Now they are in genuine danger of collecting an unwanted piece of Premier League history, by finishing with less than the 11 points Derby County managed in 2007/08, the lowest in the competitions' history.

Defeat after defeat made it a matter of time before Russell Martin was dismissed back in December, with interim manager Simon Rusk briefly stemming the tide picked up a point away at Craven Cottage against Fulham.

Croatian manager Ivan Juric then permanently replaced Martin, most recently boss of Roma in Serie A before departing in November. Initially, he was confident of improvement.

“I’m very optimistic because I saw a team that can do better,” he said after his appointment was announced. “It’s important to immediately be connected with the fans. I want an aggressive team and I think that fans of Southampton will like that.”

In one of his first games in charge, he managed to get an decent performance from the team, against Palace in the reverse fixture. But a moment of quality from Ebere Eze turned the game in the Eagles favour.

Collecting three points over Ipswich gave the Saints brief respite and a flicker of hope they could avoid the drop. But the very next week, they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Burnley.

Any realistic hopes of avoiding finishing last appeared to be extinguished before the international break, when they were beaten 2-1 at home by Wolves, giving the visitors' own survival hopes a huge boost. The Saints now have nine games remaining to get the win or three draws required to avoid going down, statistically, as the worst team in Premier League history.

The boss

Appointed shortly following Martin's dismissal, Jurić, a former Croatia international as a player, arrived on the south coast on an 18-month contract with a reputation for helping his teams punch above their weight – as well as a reputed love for death metal music.

The 49-year-old’s coaching career to date has been spent in Italy, most recently with European giants Roma, but with notable success across spells in charge of Mantova, Crotone, Genoa, Hellas Verona and Torino.

As a player, he had lengthy spells in his native Croatia with Hajduk Split; in Spain with Sevilla; and in Serie A with Crotone and Genoa, while also winning five caps for his country.

Boot in both camps

Current Palace full-back Nathaniel Clyne spent three years at Southampton, following the end of his first spell at Selhurst Park. It was during this time he received the first senior England call-up of his career.

One of his teammates during this was Palace legend Jason Puncheon, who helped the Saints establish themselves as a Premier League club, following promotion in 2012.

The likes of Danny Butterfield, Jose Fonte and Fitz Hall also represented both sides during their careers.

The other one we simply have to celebrate is the one and only Kevin Phillips, who netted 26 times over two seasons in Hampshire before moving on to Aston Villa. Memorably, he would go on to score one of the most important goals in Palace history in the 2013 play-off final.

Record against Palace

Palace have enjoyed a strong recent record against Southampton, but it is somewhat of a newfound thing.

The Eagles have enjoyed four straight Premier League wins in this fixture, but prior to that, results had been fairly mixed, with Southampton winning six of the preceding 12. Two seasons back the Saints were also responsible for our FA Cup exit.

Indeed, Palace's three wins on the trot is one fewer for them than in the previous 25 meetings.

The last time we travelled to the south coast, Ebere Eze stole the show at St Mary's Stadium – his second goal a dazzler.

It was a similar story in the reverse fixture between the two sides this season, just before the turn of the year. Southampton took the lead through a Tyler Dibling tap-in, before Trevoh Chalobah equalised.

Eze then again proved the match winner, drilling a low shot into the bottom corner, for his fourth career goal against the Saints.

Highlights: Crystal Palace 2-1 Southampton

Did you know?

The Saints are often cited as the reason two of Spain’s biggest clubs wear red and white.

Southampton and Bilbao were both important port cities in the 19th century, and English workers were credited in part with introducing football to northern Spain. They even helped to form Bilbao F.C, an early incarnation of Athletic Bilbao.

In 1909 a Bilbao representative who played for Atlético Madrid visited the English south coast. There, he purchased 50 Southampton shirts to bring back to Spain, and shared them with his respective teams, both of whom adopted the colours long-term.

Southampton’s crest, too, is one of the most interesting in the Premier League. Its somewhat bizarre combination of items has been the same since 1974.

It was first designed by Southampton local and graphic designer Rolland Parris, who won a competition in the 1970s, and features:

A halo: for the club’s nickname, Saints, after their founding by members of St. Mary's Church of England Young Men's Association.
A ball and scarf for the club’s purpose and colours.
A tree for the nearby New Forest and Southampton Common.
Water for the nearby ocean and rivers.
And a white rose, for the city’s coat of arms.

It’s not quite a terrifyingly large bird of prey on a palace, but it’s better than a seagull on a blue circle.

Match details

Wednesday, 2nd April
19:45 BST
St Mary's Stadium
Live audio commentary on Palace TV+

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