Tottenham vs. Southampton preview: What to expect from Spurs
By Aaron Coe
Tottenham Hotspur travel to St. Mary’s on Sunday to face Southampton as both Spurs and Saints try to get their first wins in the young Premier League season.
Last season, Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton had two of the top attackers in the Premier League in Harry Kane and Danny Ings.
However, in week one, neither could get going as both Spurs and Saints fell to defeat 1-0. Neither team wants to already be six points back of the leaders, particularly Tottenham who have started a hectic stretch of matches and need the confidence boost.
So, what has been the recent trend and what can we expect as Spurs travel to the south coast to take on Southampton in the Premier League?
Recent Spurs-Saints history
If you use 10 games as the sample size, it seems like Tottenham have been quite dominant over Southampton over the last several years, as Spurs have won six of the last 10 meetings in all competitions between the two, with Southampton winning two and the sides drawing a pair. Over that 10-match sample, Tottenham have outscored Saints 22 to 13, further underlining the domination with plus-nine goals in 10 matches.
However, if you take a slightly smaller sample size, say the last five matches between the two sides, you start to see a different picture. Over the last five games, the sides have split with Spurs winning two, Saints winning two, and the sides sharing spoils once. Further, in those five games, both Tottenham and Southampton have scored seven goals apiece.
Included in that stretch of five matches is the 1-0 loss at St. Mary’s on New Year’s last season, when Tottenham lost Harry Kane to a torn hamstring. That shutout of Spurs is the only shutout by either team in the last 11 matches played against one another.
In fact, you must go back to December 2015 to find the last time Tottenham blanked Southampton, in a 2-0 victory at St. Mary’s. In other words, recent history has shown that the Saints give Spurs trouble.
What to expect from Southampton?
Interestingly, that shutout was also the last time Spurs won the possession battle against Southampton, preferring to sit back, absorb, and hit Saints on the counter the last few seasons. After winning the possession battle in their loss to Crystal Palace on opening weekend, expect Southampton to try to again maintain most of the possession. Normally, I would think this is what Jose Mourinho wants, but it is difficult to say as he continues to retool the Tottenham squad.
One thing we know for sure is not only will Southampton try to control possession, they will be very direct when they do so. That is not to say Southampton will only play long-ball – although over 13 percent of their passes against Palace were long balls – rather they just like to play the ball forward.
Some 37 percent of the passes (209 of 568) against Palace were forward. Whereas Spurs are often accused of being too slow and moving laterally too much, that will not be the case with Southampton.
Rather, Southampton will use Danny Ings and Che Adams to run the channels, putting pressure on Toby Alderweireld and Eric Dier, who should start for Spurs. Also expect Saints to look to overload the left, as the work to get Nathaniel Redmond in down the flank and overlap with Ryan Bertrand to get more bodies in the attack. A lot of the distribution to those players will come from James Ward-Prowse, who is working to fill the shoes left by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who joined Spurs from Saints.
With all the attention likely to be shown to Redmond and Bertrand on the left, Tottenham cannot afford to overlook the right side either, as former Spurs Academy graduate Kyle Walker-Peters will be looking to show his former club just what they are missing out on after a solid debut last week. If Walker-Peters is facing Ben Davies on the left – which seems quite likely – his athleticism may give the Welsh fullback fits.
What to expect from Tottenham?
After a long trip to Bulgaria and back as well as the signing of fan favorite and club legend Gareth Bale, there is likely to be a bit of pressure on Spurs this weekend. We know from watching “All or Nothing” Jose Mourinho is quite demanding and with everything heading Spurs’ way in terms of schedule, Tottenham must be ready.
After a week to reflect on the stinker against Everton and a penalty to get in the books against Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Harry Kane should be nearly his top form, which is good for Tottenham and bad for Southampton. Kane has scored nine in his last nine league appearances against Saints and just missed the 10th on the injury inducing offside strike back on New Year’s Day of this year.
Besides Kane, we will hopefully be seeing more Tanguy Ndombele after having an impact 30-minutes midweek as well as the first league appearance of Giovani Lo Celso, who seems to be recovering from an injury in preseason.
With Hojbjerg likely looking to get one over on his old team and several players on both offense and defense looking to keep their jobs following a couple major signings – see Lucas Moura, Dele Alli, Son Heung-min, Ben Davies – we should see a good effort from this Spurs team.
In the end that is what is most important, the effort. While Southampton has troubled Spurs over the last couple of seasons, if Tottenham performs up to the level the squad is capable of, they should have no trouble leaving St. Mary’s with three points.
While they were not even close to sharp midweek, the effort was there and it was enough. Sure, Southampton is loads better than Lokomotiv Plovdiv, but so is the pitch, conditions, and likely the mental state of the lads. Ultimately, this should be a Spurs victory, and with some of the big announcements of late, hopefully one in real fashion, with lots of goals and a clean sheet.
Spurs win 4-0, what do you think?