2020/21 REPORT

League Position: 15th (Premier League)Top League Goalscorer: Danny Ings (12)Stadium: St Mary’s, Southampton, Hampshire, SO14 5SPCapacity: 32,505

Now a well established Premier League side, Southampton had a mixed campaign last time out. The campaign can perhaps best be considered one of two halves. An impressive start saw the side sit in and around the top six places as they picked up wins against the likes of Burnley, West Bromwich Albion, Everton and Aston Villa. Added to that they claimed a 3-3 draw with Chelsea and had victories over Brighton & Hove Albion and Sheffield United moving towards the Christmas period. The turn of the year saw wins dry up as they were beaten by sides like Leicester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa ahead of their tough day out in Manchester as they were beaten 9-0 by Manchester United. A difficult winter period saw the side slip further down the table as they picked up more defeats at the hands over Manchester City, West Bromwich and Tottenham Hotspur. As the campaign drew to a close they managed to pick up points against the likes of Crystal Palace and Fulham to boost their hopes as they finished five points clear of the drop zone. As for the Cup competitions, as stated above, they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Brentford early on, but they did reach the Semi-Final of the Emirates FA Cup where they met eventual winners Leicester. Kelechi Iheanacho grabbed the game’s only goal at Wembley.

THE MANAGER

Ralph Hasenhüttl had a career which began in his native Austria for sides such as GAK, Austria Wien and Austria Salzburg. As a centre forward he then went on to represent FC Köln and finished his career with Bayern Munich II. He stepped into management with SpVgg Unterhaching not far from Munich before progressing to take the reigns at vFr Aalen and then FC Ingolstadt 04. The exciting project at RB Leipzig came calling in 2016 and in his debut season he guided the club to second in the Bundesliga. He left two years later and in December 2018 he opted to move to Southampton to succeed Mark Hughes as he became the first Austrian manager in the Premier League.

LAST MEETING

The trip to St Mary's in an impressive Bees campaign saw them make history to eventually reach the Semi-Finals. The Second Round tie in Hampshire saw Brentford go ahead through Christian Nørgaard before Josh Dasilva added another to help secure the win.

Southampton: McCarthy; Walker-Peters, Stevens, Bednarek, Bertrand; Romeu; Tella (sub Obafemi 84 mins), Ward-Prowse, Redmond (sub Djenepo 71 mins); Ings, Adams (sub Long 84 mins)

Subs (not used): Forster, Vestergaard, Smallbone, Vokins

Bookings: McCarthy (9 mins)

Bees: Daniels; Dalsgaard, Goode, Sørensen, Thompson (sub Henry 71 mins); Baptiste, Nørgaard, Dasilva (sub Marcondes 71 mins); Mbeumo, Forss (sub Dervişoğlu 77 mins), Fosu

Subs (not used): Pinnock, Žambůrek

Bookings: Thompson (12 mins), Dalsgaard (52 mins), Goode (58 mins)