Why Southampton are suddenly my second favourite team | OneFootball

The omens were terrible.

Manchester City had belatedly strung together a run of wins after an underwhelming mid-season. They were welcoming back the Scary Viking. They were warming up for the FA Cup final, the only remaining chance of a trophy in 2024-25. And they were hot on the heels of a faltering Arsenal in second place.

Standing in their way were Southampton, bottom of the Premier League, relegated before Easter, with two wins from 35 matches when the match kicked off.

So bad, Southampton had only 11 points, the record low set by Derby County nearly 20 years ago. Not even the undoubted talents of Derby’s captain, Robbie Savage, could spare them from humiliation in 2007-08.

With football, however, there is always hope, though you would never have realised that if you had listened to the patronising comments from the BBC Five Live commentary team before the game started. How many would Haaland score? When would the first City goal hit the net? Could they finish as runners-up to Liverpool?

Confession time: I like Southampton, having worked there from 1981-83, having met my long-suffering wife there, having bought my first property in Portswood, a district that a certain Mr Le Tissier later made famous when he became a regular at the bingo hall on the high street.

My work involved some exciting afternoons subbing for the Saturday afternoon football paper, when Kevin Keegan made a right nuisance of himself more than once by scoring last-gasp goals. Hold the front page!

More recently, I’ve found myself among the home fans for matches against United and my record is pretty good, if you ignore the debacle in 2002 when we had nothing to play for. Kieron Dyer took that rather too literally, paying the price when an appalling tackle essentially ruined his pending World Cup campaign.

Back to today. Southampton’s caretaker manager, Adam Lallana, put all 11 men behind the ball and said to Manchester City: “Come on, what have you got?”

The answer was: “Not a lot!” to quote the late Paul Daniels. To quote him in full: “You’ll like this, not a lot, but you’ll like it!”

Well, I liked it, I liked it an awful lot. By dropping two points on the South Coast, Manchester City have left almost everything back in our hands.

If Arsenal lose at Anfield tomorrow and we beat Chelsea, then win at the Emirates (something we have done already this season) and beat Everton in our final game of the season at St James’ Park, we will finish second to the team we outclassed in the League Cup final.

I know that is quite a few “ifs” but anything is possible in football, as Southampton proved today by holding out for a 0-0.

Their opponents didn’t test Ramsdale in the first half, managed only five shots on target in about 100 minutes and then complained that Southampton had wasted time, broken up the play whenever possible and generally not been jolly good sports.

Boo-hoo! As if Pep’s players have never engaged in game management…

Oh when the Saints, go marching in, when the Saints go marching in, I will be raising a glass of red to them.