The Southampton view with St Mary’s Musings

Brighton do not have a great record against Southampton in the Premier League, as Saints website St Mary’s Musings are keen to point out. Five meetings so far, no Albion victories and two wins in a row for those in red and white stripes.

Southampton’s dominance in the fixture is all the more surprising given both sides have spent the past three seasons looking over their shoulders, by and large.

The signs are that might be changing at St Mary’s at least. Since their record-breaking 9-0 home hammering at the hands of Leicester City back in October, Southampton have enjoyed an excellent season and are already guaranteed Premier League football for 2020-21.

Can they now return to challenging for Europe, as they did under Ronald Koeman and Claude Puel? And just how did current boss Ralph Hasenhüttl and his players bounce back so well from a defeat that could so easily have proved terminal?

They were among the other subjects up for discussion – along with Southampton’s hoodoo over Brighton – as we caught up with Allen Gunn from St Mary’s Musings ahead of the Albion’s trip along the south coast.

Southampton have avoided relegation this season and relatively comfortably. How happy are you with the campaign?
You have to be fairly happy considering how inconsistent and poor we were leading into November. I thought this was our year to at least threaten the Europa League places but losing 3-0 at Burnley to begin the season really served as a marker for the frustration that we’d go through.

It’s the age old saying, it’s now how you start, it’s how you finish, and we’ve definitely had a terrific second half of the year.

A lot of people wondered how or if you would recover from that 9-0 hammering at home to Leicester. How on earth did Ralph Hasenhüttl turn it around after that?
We get the question framed this way every time when as a club, we have definitely moved on from it. It served as a wakeup call more than anything – we had not been playing well and it all came to a head when we gave up an early goal and then went down to 10 men. It was the perfect recipe for disaster.

Ralph’s job was never in jeopardy, even at that point. We instantly made the change to 4-4-2, which we should have been playing from the outset and that certainly changed our fortunes. We had a free hit at Manchester City right after the Leicester game but then picked up a pretty big draw against Arsenal before finally hitting our stride.

We had a capable mid table team, but it took the likes of James Ward-Prowse and Nathan Redmond to come into consistent form to give us that edge.

If Danny Ings stayed healthy, we always knew what he could provide. It was just always that question of ‘if’. Jack Stephens and Jan Bednarek have also formed a pretty formidable centre-back partnership after a lacklustre start.

Where do you see Southampton going over the next few years? Can you get back to being top eight challengers as you were several seasons ago?
I think so. I think we have found the right formula now. If we hadn’t been frankly dumb to start the season by going away from the formation that gave us success, I think our year would have looked massively different.

Like I’ve said, we’ve shown we’re a capable mid table team, but drop a few points here and there at the wrong time and you’re in a congested relegation battle.

If we strengthen our midfield and solidify the right back position, we can certainly push for Europa League next season and that should be our aim.

Who have been the Saints best players so far this season? Any disappointments?
It goes without question that Ings has been our best player this season. I think Redmond and Ward-Prowse have certainly shown they possess quality and the ability to impact games – they just need to do so at a more consistent rate.

The biggest surprise has been Stuart Armstrong. He’s been great since the restart and is playing his best football since joining the club.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has been the biggest disappointment. For someone looking to go play for a top six club, he has looked off the pace all year and wouldn’t walk into one of their starting 11s at this moment in time.

What would you like to see Southampton do in the summer transfer window?
We have to sign Kyle Walker-Peters from Spurs permanently. I can’t go another game watching Yan Valery playing right back for us. Walker-Peters has been so important since the return from hiatus.

If Hojbjerg does in fact go – all signs are saying he will leave this summer – then we definitely need to strengthen our midfield.

At the moment, we’ve got Oriol Romeu and Ward-Prowse but nothing Premier League ready after that. If we can find a box-to-box guy that pinches a goal every so often, we will definitely have a better chance of getting European football back to St Mary’s.

Southampton and Brighton have become regular opponents over the past few seasons. What are your favourite memories from our meetings?
If I can go back that far, Rickie Lambert’s hat-trick back in 2011 when we won 3-0 at St Mary’s in the Championship. He’s an all-time Saints hero and he delivered a great moment that day on what would become part of our march back to the Premier League. The second penalty was bizarre, how he had to take it twice!

The Saints ran out 2-0 winners at the Amex back in August, thanks largely to a terrible tackle and red card for Florin Andone inside of 30 minutes. What did you make of that game?
That was certainly a nasty tackle and it was a fiery match with some VAR controversy. The man advantage helped our fortunes in the game and the Moussa Djenepo opening goal in Southampton’s 2-0 win over Brighton is one of my favourites from the season.

Are there any weaknesses that Brighton could hope to exploit against Southampton?
Alex McCarthy is coming off two really strong performances in goal – versus Manchester City and at Everton. If he doesn’t show up or is caught in between two minds, then he is a potential pitfall for us.

I am hoping it’s the latter and that he’s at the races. Against Everton, our centre-backs struggled with covering Richarlison’s runs and that led to their goal, so if our back line lacks some discipline then that has the potential for Brighton to exploit.

Finally, what is the St Mary’s Musings prediction for Southampton versus Brighton please?
We’ve not lost to Brighton in our last five league meetings, including two-straight wins. I will go with a 2-1 Southampton win.

Thanks to Allen for speaking to us ahead of Brighton making the journey along the south coast to face Southampton – you can read his take on the Saints at St Mary’s Musings and they are also on Twitter.