Southampton are officially record-breakers. Saturday’s 3-1 over Swansea marked their 21st consecutive game without defeat whilst also springboarding them to second in the Championship table. There have been a handful of lows this season, but yesterday served as the jewel in the crown of Saints’ wonderful 2023/24 season.
Russell Martin has St. Mary’s bouncing again thanks to his team’s dominant playstyle and superb home record. The Hampshire club haven’t had a season like this in far too long, and most Sotononians are desperate to return to the big leagues and prove that they, not Bournemouth, are the premier club of south-coast football.
Southampton’s latest foray into the second tier will, if they do indeed go up, be substantially shorter than their last one, when the Saints endured a seven-year exile from the Premier League. There’s no danger of that this time around, however, and Russell Martin will be looking to be just the second manager to lift Southampton from the Championship and into the promised land of England’s top division.
Back in time – Saints in 2011/12
The last Saints side to achieve promotion, the 2011/12 one, needs no introduction in the city. It’s a Southampton side that has gone down as iconic – a supporting cast of Jose Fonte, Morgan Schneiderlin, Adam Lallana, and Billy Sharp helped propel club icon Rickie Lambert to 31 goals in all competitions that season.
Manager Nigel Adkins never let Saints below second in the table for the entirety of the season and the club burst back into the Premier League just a point behind division winners Reading.
A whopping 85 goals arrived throughout the season, and the Saints fell to just 10 defeats out of 46 games. Martin has only suffered four league defeats in his time at the helm, but their consecutive nature caused many to worry that Saints would once again find themselves in the purgatory of the Championship’s midtable.
Those doubts have been eviscerated now, and Southampton’s 21-game unbeaten streak is the best in the club’s entire history. Adam Armstrong and Ryan Fraser, two Newcastle United outcasts, are some of the principal architects in charge of the rebuild, and a points-per-game average of 2.07 dwarfs the 1.91 accrued under Atkins twelve years ago.
History makers – Saints in 23/24
The current Southampton team may not be as flashy as Aktins’ one, but it’s far more functional. They control games and suffocate opposition. They were unfortunate not to have been 4-0 up at half-time against Swansea. A 3-1 win sounds convincing by itself, but even that result does the Welsh club too much justice.
Several of Saints’ stars from the 2010s received big-money moves to major Premier League clubs, but Martin seems hellbent on building a side full of gritty, reliable fighters. It’s unknown if this current incarnation will be remembered as fondly as their predecessors, but the 21-game unbeaten streak has already written them into Southampton’s folklore.
Southampton will be playing Premier League football next season – there’s no doubt about it. Their historic unbeaten run will be a lesson for anyone who discarded them as a flash in the pan, and only a spectacular collapse stands between them and the top flight. Saints used to be their own worst enemies, but the club now looks more united than ever.
