Southampton v Manchester City: Head To Head

Manchester City make the long journey to the south coast for a clash with 3^rd placed Southampton, looking for the point and performance that will ignite their season.

The blues have struggled for goals this season and laboured against West Brom on Tuesday as time and again they failed to break down the Baggies stubborn defence. Southampton on the other hand have recovered from losing their opening games and now sit in third place in the Premier League.

The Saints beat City 1-0 at St Mary’s last season, but what do the stats say about this fixture?

Southampton v Manchester City has produced a mixed bag of results since their first meeting in the FA Cup February 1910. On that occasion, City put Saints to the sword, winning 5-0 on the south coast and it wasn’t until April 1927 that the two teams faced each other in league competition.

The blues won two and drew two of their first four matches, but then lost the following three. After winning at Southampton in October 1965, City won one of their following 19 visits, a run that included 8 straight defeats between December 1978 and September 1985.

More recently and prior to last season’s surprise defeat, the blues had only lost 4 of their 17 trips to the home of the Saints while winning 9, including a run of three straight victories between April 2017 and December 2018.

Saturday’s game will be the 47^th time these two have met at Southampton, with the home side winning 21 to City’s 14, with 11 draws in all competitions. As well as that solitary FA Cup tie, City have been drawn to play at Southampton three times, with the home side winning all three 2-1 and 4-3, while the most recent 4-3 League Cup defeat came when City were in the third tier of English football. Paul Dickov had given City the lead, but Saints came back to lead 3-1. Shaun Goater levelled the scores, but Saint’s scored an extra time winner to send a battling City side out.

City’s biggest league win at Southampton is 3-0, a result achieved on three occasions – November 1991, November 2014 and April 2017, while their heaviest league defeat is 4-1 – January 1980 and March 1983.

The blues have scored 54 goals and kept a total of 14 clean sheets. By comparison, Southampton have scored 67 goals and have prevented City from scoring on 11 occasions. The last goalless draw between these two was October 2004 which, until last season’s defeat was he last time City failed to score in this fixture.

City have travelled south 6 times in December and have won just once in this month – 3-1 in 2018. The blues have lost 3 times in December and the other 2 matches have been drawn. They have never faced each other on 19^th December, but the closest was on 17^th December 1927 when the match ended 1-1.

What will be tomorrow’s result?