Southampton v Watford Wednesday 13th January 2016 St Mary's 19.45 please log in to view this image Southampton Football Club, nicknamed The Saints, home ground since 2001 has been St Mary's Stadium, before which they were based at The Dell. The club has been nicknamed "The Saints" since its inception in 1885 due to its history as a church football team, founded as St Mary's Church of England Young Men's Association and has since generally played in red and white shirts. They have won the FA Cup once in 1976, and their highest-ever league finish was second in the First Division in 1983–84. Southampton were relegated from the Premier League on 15 May 2005, ending 27 successive seasons of top-division football for the club but returned after a seven-year absence and have played there ever since. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Interesting fact - Koeman replaced Quique Flores as Manager of Valencia in 2007 Previous meetings Southampton and Watford have met 75 times since their first meeting ended in a 1-0 victory for the Saints in December 1900. Southampton lead overall with 32 victories to Watford's 25 and 18 matches drawn. Post war the meetings have been more equal with Watford winning 17 and Southampton 16 of the 40 games played. The more recent encounters commenced with the famous League Cup upset in 1980 -fondly remembered by many Hornets. please log in to view this image Tuesday, September 2, 1980 Having gone down 4-0 to Southampton at the Dell in the first leg of their League Cup second round tie, few gave the Hornets much chance of salvaging more than pride in the second leg despite the absence through injury of Kevin Keegan. By half-time the home side were two up through Malcolm Poskett and Ray Train. Martin Patching added a third, but a Steve Sims own goal with less than 20 minutes remaining appeared to end any hopes of a comeback. Within a minute, however, Chris Nicholl fouled Ross Jenkins in the penalty area and Ian Bolton converted the spot kick. Jenkins himself made it 5-1, and when Charlie George hit the bar with a late screamer the game went into extra-time. Teenage substitute Nigel Callaghan added a sixth before Poskett rounded Katalinic for his second to complete an extraordinary 7-1 scoreline. Recent Form please log in to view this image Watford's current away form is slightly better than Southampton's home form. please log in to view this image Both sides got off to a "safe" start to the campaign but Southampton settled sooner and rose to 7th place after 11 games - they have subsequently slipped to 13th. Meanwhile Watford also rose to7th after 16 games but now sit 9th after successive defeats to sides in Champions League places. 5 points separate the teams. The earlier meeting this season resulted in a rather unspectacular 0-0 draw at Vicarage Road. please log in to view this image Officials Referee: Craig Pawson Assistants: D Bryan and M Scholes Fourth Official: K Friend Referee Craig Pawson made his Barclays Premier League debut as he took charge of Swansea City's clash with Newcastle United on 2 March 2013, and he was placed in the Select Group of Premier League officials from the 2013/14 season. Prior to his top flight debut, Yorkshire-based referee Pawson took charge of 12 Championship matches and the 2012 League Two Play-Off Final, which saw Crewe Alexandra beat Cheltenham 2-0 at Wembley. Pawson has been a referee since 1993, working his way up to regularly officiating in the Football League in the 2012/13 season. He was last seen by Watford at Vicarage Road as the fourth official in our defeat against Spurs. Before that ie refereed away wins for Watford at Birmingham (4-0) and Leicester (2-1) in 2013. Betting Southampton are odds on favourites for the match at 10/11 Watford are 3/1 to win The draw is 12/5
A Thank you squire for the thread. I really hope we can stop the rot of two league losses in a row. After all, we are in dire position in 9th place. COHY!! Also, missed the mid-week games after the championship, the games seem to come think and fast there, in the Prem there are too many breaks!
Great thread, thanks Leonardo! Sad to see the ref was the 4th official at the Spurs game, so obviously didn't do anything about the offside goal...hopefully he won't let anything bad happen this time! Looking forward to the trip and yet again taking advantage of the club's £1 coaches. Can't beat some of these away games for value, especially if we win, which i obviously predict we will, and this time i'm going with a 3-1 .
3-1 -that's a surprise. I am hoping the ref will have seen the offside shown on telly and be full of remorse for not having spotted it and intervened (is he allowed to?) so will be ready to balance things up for us in this game.
As far as I'm aware, the 4th official isn't allowed to intervene unless he sees an off the ball incident that none of the other officials do.
Excellent thread Lenny, you can see you used to work in finance. A group of us are going down in the beer bus (although it will be the Coke Zero bus for me as I am on a alcohol free January). We are leaving bandit country at lunch time, so should be in the Spoons by 3 - there will be some messy people by kick-off. No doubt I will be driving back! Little Miss W_Y was at their FA Cup game with Palace yesterday, she said they really struggled with players running at them and we should win if we are on our game. So as H nicked the 1-3, I will go for 1-2. Top thread Lenny
"He assists the referee to control the match in accordance with the Laws of the Game. The referee, however, retains the authority to decide on all points connected with play" I have never been active in on field incidents as a fourth official except where the bench tries to get involved. Our brief is to observe and report and our pre match instructions are to assist not insist. In short, keep our noses out.
That sort of makes sense to keep the game flowing as fast as poss. But if the 4th knows something is wrong he must let the no1 ref know .?
Very true the 3 other refs should pick up most (why don't they ?) lol in most cases they do well in not a easy job
I'd forgotten the 4-1 win at The Dell in our first season in Div 1. That was a real confidence booster.
Tough game for us, you're having a great season and a well organised side who will make things difficult for us yet have pace and power up top too. Really only see this ending one way unfortunately (for us!) Hope I'm wrong though!!
The home side definitely have the advantage; it could go any of 3 ways. We know how we will turn up but Southampton? Thump Arsenal 4-0 then lose poorly after that so very difficult to predict how they will play although I think they have one or two players back from injury? Also I'm concerned how thin our squad actually is; this was shown up last week and the stats show we are (or one of the) the team who has used the least number of players. Results last night went mostly in our favour although I would have preferred Bournemouth to get a draw.
