Southampton Face Familiar Foe Crystal Palace in EFL Cup Tie
For the third time in five years, Southampton will face Alan Pardew’s squad to open their participation in the an English tournament.
Ties for the third round of the English Football League Cup were announced yesterday, with Claude Puel’s side drawn against Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace to kick off the Saints’ participation in the tournament.
Palace entered the tournament in the last round, contested only a few days ago on 23 August. The Eagles were victorious in that tie, sending Blackpool off 2-0 before 7,533 at their home ground Selhurst Park.
Their next round brings them to the South Coast, where they will face Southampton at St. Mary’s the week of September 19th. It’s a match that, on the basis of history, seems to favour the visitors.
Southampton boast an overall winning record over their London counterparts, with 42 wins against 22 losses and 37 draws through all levels of competition. But in tournaments, the recent history tilts strongly in Palace’s favour: the Saints have not beaten Palace in a cup tie since 1990.
That match was a fourth-round tie in the same competition, then known simply as the Football League Cup. In a match for the ages before 13,765 at The Dell, future Saints legends Matt Le Tissier and Alan Shearer each scored.
The past three cup ties between the clubs have seen Saints go down 2-1, 3-2 and 2-0 in two FA Cups and a League Cup respectively. In Premiership play, the split has been more favourable to Southampton: the team lost their first fixture last year 1-0 at Selhurst but rounded out the season with a crushing 4-1 victory at St. Mary’s.
It was a key win for the boys in the red-and-white, clinching their spot in the Europa League for the second year running. But much has changed since then; new manager, new players, new system.
It is often said that football has no memory, but among those veterans who remain on the Saints’ squad, the taste of three bitter tournament exits at the hands of Pardew’s men will surely be fresh in the club’s mind.
The EFL Cup may not be the most prestigious of trophies, in the grand scheme, but for a team whose only silverware consists of the 1976 FA Cup and the 2010 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, a new addition to the case will surely be taken however it comes.
Before Southampton can consider any new silverware, though, they’ll have to shake the tournament monkey off their back. In a few weeks, the faithful will flock to St. Mary’s, hoping to see the history of 1990 repeated.