Is this Southampton’s gift to the rest of the Premier League?
Football is life in microcosm. An amplified, magnified, footballing version of life, it is the soap opera that keeps on churning.
We have plots and subplots, side stories and other-side stories. We have pantomime villains, rags to riches stories… and we have Jose Mourinho.
And at the moment, the good Samaritan figure is surely Southampton.
Saintly by name and saintly by nature, they’ve been in shocking form over the last few weeks. It’s almost as if Ronald Koeman and his men, standing pasty-faced and trembling in the gaze of the Europa League’s Medusa stare, have turned to stone.
They’ve won only once in their last six games, and their attempt to avoid supping from the poisoned chalice of Thursday nights on ITV 4 has been of enormous help to some of the teams at the bottom of the table. The scavengers down there, feeding from scraps and the odd hard-fought point, have gleefully feasted on the Saints’ poor form.
Hull and Burnley couldn’t manage to help themselves, though. Burnley have gone and Hull don’t look to be too far behind them, and that probably shows what a gift Southampton have given to the others. In successive games, Sunderland and Leicester have been given Premier League lifelines by a Southampton side who could still claw their way into Europe for the first time since 2003. But at the moment, they look like a team caught standing in the doorway of history with their pants down.
Next up, it’s Aston Villa’s turn to humble the formerly high-flying Saints. Villa now know that winning their game at St Mary’s this weekend will see them safe with a match to spare – and they could then focus squarely on an FA Cup final.
What was an awful season for Villa could very easily turn into their best one in years. By contrast, a great season for Southampton could turn into a poor one – lose to Villa and they’d have to go to Manchester City on the last day and look for a redeeming result there.
That’s overstatement, of course. No matter what happens it’s not a poor season for Southampton: they’ve confounded expectations in a big way. But it would be a disappointing end to a season of high hopes. With Swansea breathing down their necks, a Europa League spot – even if 7th place ensures one – does not look certain.
From a Southampton point of view, the only glowing bright spot from these last six games is that Tottenham have done almost as terribly. Spurs have won only once in their last six too, but they did manage an extra point out of those games.
All of this leaves Tottenham only a point ahead of Southampton but with a vastly inferior goal difference. Swansea have capitalised on this to find themselves only a point further back.
And so the soap opera keeps churning. Both Saints and Swansea have a game against Manchester City in their final two. Both Tottenham and Southampton have tricky games against relegation-threatened teams – Hull and Villa – and Swansea and Spurs both have games against mid-table teams with little to play for – Palace and Everton.
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But with the form of the three teams as erratic as it is, it’s hard to see any of those games as foregone conclusions. There’s a lot left to play for, but Spurs and Southampton really don’t look like they want it. Terrified of playing in the Europa League next season, perhaps. I don’t blame them.
The Saints and the Spurs are stumbling over the line, and the Swans are gliding up on the rails. It’s going to be an interesting finish to the Europa League chase.
Or maybe that should be ‘the Europa League evasion’. The soap opera continues.
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