With a 3-1 loss to Tottenham on Sunday, Southampton became the quickest team in English Premier League history to be relegated. With a current record of two wins, four draws, and 25 losses, their 10 total points are on pace to be the lowest amount in EPL history. Shortly after their latest record-setting loss, Southampton announced that they would part ways with head coach Ivan Juric, who had been with the team since December. He managed only to get one win while heading the team, and it is the second time he’s been fired this season after being let go from Italian league’s AS Roma after 12 games.
Southampton was promoted to the Premier Leauge from the Championship last year after finishing with a total of 87 points. While it wasn’t expected that they’d compete for the title, there were hopes that they could at least stay in England’s top league and finish outside the bottom three. Quickly, that expectation turned into a pipe dream, as they failed to win in their first nine games of the year. They managed a draw against Ipswich Town in September, but that was the only highlight for a squad that continuously struggled to score goals.
Their first win of the year against Everton in early November was their first game in which they scored multiple goals, and by that time, they were already dead last in the EPL table.
Later in November, they somehow managed to play a close game against league-leading Liverpool and finished with a draw against Brighton in the next week. In December, Southampton scored just three goals in six Premier League games, losing all of them, including two 5-0 losses to Chelsea and Tottenham. Though they brought in Juric as head coach in place of Russell Martin, they continued on their horrendous stretch even after the managerial change. January and February saw Southampton in similar form, including two 4-0 losses and another 5-0 loss. They managed only one win in that stretch, a 2-1 victory over Ipswich Town that is still their last time leaving the pitch on top.
Southampton lost their two games in March, despite taking the lead against Liverpool in their second matchup of the season. Somehow, Southampton snapped their 12-game losing streak by drawing against Crystal Palace in early April. This past match week, they once again lost to Tottenham, confirming their relegation and affirming their potential of finishing as one of the worst teams in Premier League history. They fired Juric and announced that Simon Rusk would be the interim head coach for their final seven games of the season, despite their future being confirmed as a return to England’s second tier.
Through the majority of this season, Southampton sits firmly in last place, with just two wins and a league-leading -51 goal differential. Their 23 goals scored is the lowest in the league, and their 74 goals conceded is the highest in the league, and they just set the record for the earliest point in a season for a team to be relegated. If they finish this season without any more wins or draws, they will also finish with the lowest points total in EPL history. Their current ten points would beat out the 2007-08 Derby County team that finished the year with just 11 points, a record that was thought to stand the test of time.
“We want to get as many points as we can until the end of the season,” Southampton goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale said after their latest loss. “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.”
As for now, the only task for Southampton in the remainder of the 2024-25 Premier League season is to win or draw at least one game to not finish with the lowest-points record. They have a relatively easy remaining strength of schedule, but even that is tough to say, considering they’ve already lost to each of the seven teams they have left to play.
It will be a season to forget for Southampton, as they’ve been consistently unable to score goals while at the same time giving up the most in the league. In what is another disappointing statistic, Paul Onuachu is the only Southampton player to score more than three goals this season, with each of his four goals coming over the past three and a half months. Southampton is the only team not to have a player score at least five goals in the Premier League this season.
It hasn’t yet been confirmed if Rusk will stay on with the team in the Championship next year, but regardless, it will be a tough task to get the ghosts of this season off their back. Southampton will most likely be a top contender for winning England’s second-tier league next season, but they shouldn’t expect it to be handed to them, as Leicester City and Ipswich Town are likely to join them in relegation.
In what has been one of the worst historical and statistical seasons in English Premier League history, Southampton becomes the quickest team to be relegated, while currently in form to finish with the lowest points total in the history of the league.
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