Southampton: Saints set to play first pre-season friendly on Saturday

Southampton are set to play their first pre-season friendly of 2020/21 when they take on Swansea City on Saturday.

Via a report from Wales Online, the Swans will travel to St Mary’s to take on Saints as both sides step up their preparations for the upcoming campaign.

The article also confirms that the friendly will see two separate 60 minute matches take place to allow game time two different teams of players.

Both teams begin their domestic calendar on 12th September, with Saints travelling to Crystal Palace in the Premier League and Swansea facing Preston North End away from home in the Championship.

Saints’ pre-season plans have been a mystery so far and it looks as though no matches have been played by Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side yet.

That looks set to change this weekend though with a clash against a team that they last faced back in 2017/18.

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Saints fans will remember the last meeting with Swansea well. Both teams were scrapping to avoid relegation at the bottom of the Premier League two years ago and they faced each other in what turned out to be a straight shootout to avoid the drop to the second-tier.

A tight affair was eventually decided by former favourite of the St Mary’s faithful Manolo Gabbiadini when he bundled home from close-range and produced wild scenes in the away end at the Liberty Stadium.

Since that day, both teams have had a mixed time.

Saints fought out of relegation trouble at the end of the 2018/19 season and then overcame a dreadful opening to 2019/20 to finish strongly in 12th place.

Swansea claimed a finish of 10th in their first campaign back in the Championship and then went further in 2019/20 to claim a play-off place by finishing 6th. They were knocked out in the play-off semi-finals by Brentford though.

The result of today is likely to mean little for the prospects of both teams this year but 60 minutes of action will certainly prove valuable to the players.