Southampton relegation: ‘We have to avoid that record’, says boss Ivan Juric

Southampton’s season has been troubled from the start.

They lost eight of their opening nine games this term, and after 23 games had just one victory to their name.

After replacing Russell Martin in December, Juric oversaw six straight defeats and has just one win in his 14 league games at the helm.

Saints were nine points adrift of safety when he came in, but 22 points now separate them from Wolves, who won 2-1 at third-bottom Ipswich on Saturday.

They had five points from Martin’s top-flight spell this season, one under interim boss Simon Rusk and four so far during Juric’s tenure.

Southampton are only the third team to lose as many as 25 of their first 31 games of a top-flight campaign, after Sunderland in 2005-06 and Sheffield United in 2020-21 (both also 25).

They have conceded the most goals in the league (74) by far, and are the lowest scorers in the top four divisions of English football (23 goals in 31 games).

No team has ever had fewer points in the Premier League after 31 games (10), although Sunderland in 2005-06 & Derby in 2007-08 had the same tally too.

Saints have the same amount of points after 31 games (10) as Derby County did in 2007-08, with Rams going on to achieve 11. Derby’s campaign remains the worst in Premier League history, although it’s a record Southampton could still beat.

“We have to avoid that record, do our best. It cannot happen,” added Juric.

Goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale echoed those thoughts as he said: “We want to get as many points as we can until the end of the season. No-one wants that record and we will do what we can – but we will do what we can to get more points on the board.”

This is the third relegation Ramsdale has suffered during his career, having gone down with Bournemouth in 2019-20 and Sheffield United in 2020-21.

“Some [players] are experiencing relegation for the first time, so there will be a lot of emotions from them over the next few days,” he added.

“The lads who have been here before, we have to try to pick the young boys up. This group did incredible things last season. Nobody will want to jump ship with seven games to go. We are tight and we have just got to pull each other through now.”

Saints captain Jan Bednarek was also honest about his team’s situation.

“We can’t change the past, the only thing we can do in the last seven games is to enjoy being in the Premier League,” he said.

“We have to improve as players and as a club. Hopefully we are going to build something great. The best thing is that we can learn, we can work hard and we can improve.”