Portsmouth vs Southampton: Big Bet Preview
Credit: Chris Homer
Portsmouth vs Southampton
(Sun 25 Jan, 12:00pm UK - Sky Sports+)
One of the country’s most heated rivalries renews once more this Sunday as Saints take the short trip to Pompey in the South Coast Derby! The early season game between these two at St. Mary’s failed to live up to the hype, so expect double the fireworks and double the action in this return fixture at Fratton Park. As far as Big Bets go, they don’t get much bigger!
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We love a good relegation battle, we love a big team struggling that need to kickstart their season for a promotion push, and we certainly love both of those together mixed up with a healthy dose of Derby Day hatred!
Southampton would love nothing more than to kick their rivals while they’re down and contribute to their misery as they fight to avoid the drop, and a Pompey win could see them put a bit of clear air between themselves and relegation as they look to make up their games in hand on the teams around them, as well as all-but ending Southampton’s play-off dreams.
Expect big emotions and even bigger tackles in this week’s Tipple Big Bet!
Form
Pompey’s form has taken a turn for the better and seen them finally climb a point above Blackburn Rovers in the relegation zone. They’ve lost just once in seven league games, managing three crucial wins in that time against teams around them, too. Couple that with impressive draws against Derby, QPR and Watford, and John Mousinho’s side are one of the form teams towards the bottom end of the table. The major concern for Portsmouth is the fact they just don’t score enough goals. The only team that have scored fewer than Pompey is Sheffield Wednesday, and their situation is obviously a massive outlier compared to the rest of the league. 23 goals in 26 games, and having only scored more than a single goal in 4 games all season, simply isn’t good enough to guarantee survival at this level. It’s time for Pompey to stop waiting for the teams around them to lose and start taking the game to their opposition. Are January reinforcements needed in the frontline?
There’s a growing sense around Southampton that they might have been too trigger-happy in handing Tonda Eckert his first permanent managerial job so soon. After 6 wins in 7 to open his reign as Southampton boss, Eckert went on to fail to mastermind a win for another 7 Championship games before finally overturning that rotten run with a close-run victory over Sheffield United in midweek. Their downturn in form has coincided with top-scorer Adam Armstrong’s inability to find the net. The forward scored 7 in 6 in a streak of games that convinced the rest of the division that Saints were readying a push for the play-off spots that was expected of them in pre-season, and has since failed to find the net in the proceeding 8 league games. If Southampton are going to turn their form back around, Armstrong finding his shooting boots again has to happen sooner rather than later. Seven points and a full nine places shy of a play-off place, it’s now or never for Eckert’s Saints. Start winning games and put a real promotion push together, or fall by the wayside and succumb to mid-table mediocrity with a squad that should have the ability to challenge with the very best at this level.
Head-to-head
These two bitter rivals had been kept apart for over 13 years. Southampton had a stint in Europe while Portsmouth’s financial issues had them scrambling to keep the club alive in League Two. Fate (well, mostly just league performance) had finally reunited these old enemies and the clash at St. Mary’s in September was set to be legendary. 13 years of rage. 13 years of pent-up anger. 13 years of separation leading up to this game as the epic crescendo! It finished 0-0. One shot on target each. Bleh. With that damp squib out of the way, this time the game has to meet expectations, doesn’t it?
Outside of league fixtures, they met most recently at Fratton Park in the 2019 League Cup and Saints ran out 4-0 winners. With the clubs being two divisions apart at the time, I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Over the last 10 league meetings between these sides, stretching all the way back to 1976, there have been 4 draws and 3 wins apiece. Not much to read into there either, sorry! The South Coast Derby doesn’t happen very often, and when it does there’s no clear dominant force.
Prior to this season’s game, there hadn't been a 0-0 in this fixture since 1924. 101 years between bore draws is a decent return on the admission fee, surely they won’t do it twice in a row, will they?
A storied rivalry renewed at last. Pompey and Saints games don’t come around often, but when they do they demand attention. The reverse fixture left a lot to be desired, can Fratton Park deliver the spectacle we’re all after?
Key Battle
Ebou Adams vs Leo Scienza
I promise this isn’t just an excuse for me to wax lyrical about one of my favourite post-administration Derby players. Ebou Adams is exactly the player Pompey needed to sign to bolster their survival chances this season.
They were lacking energy and bite in midfield and in desperate need of someone who can help them dig in and weather the storm in difficult moments. Signed for a reported £500k fee this January, the Gambian brings all that and more. Make no mistake, Adams is far from a creative midfielder, but what he lacks in line-breaking passing ability he more than makes up for in energy and grit. He was instrumental in Derby’s survival last season, playing a similar role as the midfield destroyer in a team that didn’t score enough goals, and will put his body on the line to deliver the same outcome for his new side. His ball-winning and retention numbers are absurd amongst his peers and he has already begun to win the admiration of his new supporters for exactly that. If Pompey are going to win against a Saints side that, despite their faults, is teeming with quality, they’ll need Adams to be buzzing around the middle of the park at his disruptive best.
If anyone can bypass the relentless pressure of Adams, Saints’ Brazilian maestro Leo Scienza might be the man. So far, 4 goals and 4 assists in 22 Championship games on his debut season in England is impressive, but not astounding. Raw goal and assist numbers don’t tell the whole picture with Scienza, however. Only one player has created more big chances than the Brazilian in the league this season, and nobody has more expected assists per 90. No matter how much you believe in xG and xA metrics, his creative prowess cannot be denied. On top of all this, he’s one of the league’s best dribblers and sees more of the ball than almost any other player in the division. Whichever way you slice it, Scienza is a handful. Get too tight and he is able to waltz past you into the open space, give him too much room and he can find a killer pass or bend a shot in with his magical right foot.
The option most people choose is just to go through him, resulting in him winning more fouls than anyone other attacking midfielder in the league. Luckily for us, Adams commits more fouls than most other players in the league too.
A midfield general keen to impress his new supporters in their biggest game up against one of the division’s trickiest customers. It’s bound to be tasty, whoever comes out on top.
Preview
This game feels like an inflection point for both sides’ seasons. A chance to show that you mean business and are ready to fight in the back half of the season in front of the TV cameras and against your biggest rivals. If Pompey win, their survival credentials are given a real boost and they prove to the world that they can beat sides other than just fellow relegation-battlers. A Saints win shows they may actually have the bottle and the heart that has been missing in recent weeks, and that their play-off credentials aren’t quite dead yet.
Home or Away? Pompey or Saints? Blue or Red?
Who are you backing to secure the South Coast bragging rights in this weekend’s Big Bet?
Tipple Difficulty Rating: 9/10