Sunday was a poor afternoon for Southampton.
They went down in record time, nobody wants that reputation.
They have got 10 points, they need to make sure they don’t get the record of the least amount of points.
Southampton’s relegation from the Premier League was confirmed following their latest defeat away to Tottenham Hotspur.
And the sorry Saints have become the first Premier League team to be officially down with as many as seven matches still to play.
Ipswich and Derby County had jointly held the record before Saints’ misery continued in north London – after having their relegation confirmed with six fixtures left in 1994/95 and 2007/08 respectively.
Brennan Johnson scored twice in the first half for Spurs, whose midfielder Lucas Bergvall also had what he thought was a first Premier League goal ruled out for offside following a five-minute VAR check, to consign Ivan Juric’s side to a 25th defeat of the season.
Matheus Fernandes did pull one back in the final minute, prompting sarcastic chants of “We are staying up” from the visiting supporters but their demotion was soon made official when Johnson was tripped by … in the fourth minute of added time sub Mathys Tel converting despite his Welsh team-mate being on for a hat-trick.
And now Southampton’s attention turns to avoiding another unwanted record – having the lowest-ever points tally in a Premier League season. The 2007/08 Derby team finished with 11 points – one point more than Saints have now.
Juric is fully aware of that, telling the media before Wednesday’s home match against Crystal Palace : “I don’t want it to be that we are the worst team in the history of Premier League.”
Despite that shocking return, by the calendar Saints’ drop is only the joint-fourth earliest in Premier League history with Derby going down on March 29, Huddersfield Town in 2018/19 being relegated on March 30, Fulham on April 2 of the same campaign and Leicester City’s class of 2001/02 having their fate sealed on April 6, putting them level with Southampton.
The other teams promoted to the top flight last summer – Ipswich and Leicester City – also look almost certain to return to the Championship after Wolves ‘ win at Portman Road on Saturday extended the gap to safety to 12 points.
“I think it’s certainly more than likely on the balance of probabilities,” Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna said when asked about the prospect of relegation on Saturday. “Not that I don’t think we can’t finish the season strongly, but Wolves are a strong side and the chance of them losing all their games is really low. The likelihood is we’ll fall short of our ultimate dream.”
By Agencies
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