Oliver Glasner is not sure what to anticipate from new Southampton boss Ivan Juric when Crystal Palace host the Premier League’s backside membership on Sunday.
Palace sit sixteenth within the league, three factors away from the relegation zone, following a goalless draw at Bournemouth on Boxing Day.
Southampton, in the meantime, are all-time low with six factors, having misplaced 1-0 at dwelling to West Ham in Juric’s first match on the helm on Thursday.
Ought to they lose in South London, they may have made the joint-second worst begin to a season in Premier League historical past, by 19 video games. Sunderland solely had six factors at that stage of 2005-06, whereas Sheffield United took simply 5 in 2020-21.
Glasner, nevertheless, is cautious of the menace posed by a facet beneath new administration, having adopted Juric’s time in Italy intently.
“I do know him from Italy, and he did very nicely there,” Glasner mentioned. “I believe he was all the time enjoying with a again three, and Southampton additionally performed with the again three.
“But in addition, to be trustworthy, I don’t know for the time being his type of play, and I additionally suppose it’s not doable to implement your type of play if you’ve began two or three days earlier than.
“Two days is simply restoration, probably not a variety of influence on the gamers. In fact we’ll watch the Southampton sport from right this moment, however I didn’t see it prior to now!
“In fact, my employees have already watched many video games from Southampton, and I’m fairly certain they will even have watched right this moment’s sport. Now I’ve a three-hour journey dwelling, and it could actually simply be that one of many analysts is sitting subsequent to me and displaying me some clips.”
Southampton drew 0-0 at Fulham previous to Juric taking the reins, then produced a formidable efficiency towards West Ham, solely to lose to a Jarrod Bowen objective.
Talking after that sport, Juric mentioned: “I believe the blokes did plenty of good issues right this moment. They’ve labored arduous in these few days, and I believe they’re getting higher, they’re bettering.
“From watching the Fulham sport and right this moment, I believe our group can compete.
“There are many issues to enhance, plenty of particulars we are able to do higher, however in these two video games I’ve seen that my group can compete; we’re not too far off different groups.”
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Crystal Palace – Eberechi Eze
Eze has solely registered one objective and two assists within the Premier League this season, whereas his underlying artistic metrics are additionally down on final marketing campaign.
He averaged 2.35 probabilities created, 1.53 open-play probabilities created and 0.24 anticipated assists (xA) in league play in 2023-24. In 2024-25, these figures are right down to 2.08, 1.38 and 0.15, respectively.
Southampton – Paul Onuachu
No group has failed to attain in additional completely different Premier League video games than Southampton this season (9), whereas they’ve additionally scored fewer objectives (11) and had fewer pictures on the right track (54) than another facet.
Onuachu had a game-high eight pictures price 0.84 anticipated objectives (xG) towards West Ham final outing, however solely hit the goal twice. If Southampton are to have any probability of survival, he might have to seek out his capturing boots.
MATCH PREDICTION – CRYSTAL PALACE WIN
Palace have solely misplaced two of their final 18 Premier League dwelling video games towards promoted golf equipment (10 wins, six attracts) happening 1-0 towards Sheffield United in February 2020, and 3-0 towards Fulham in December 2022.
They are going to be assured of sustaining that wonderful file right here. Southampton are winless of their final 16 Premier League away video games (4 attracts, 12 losses), scoring only one objective of their final 5 on the highway.
They’ve, nevertheless, earned as many factors from their final three top-flight away video games as that they had of their earlier 13 (two).
When enjoying within the high flight, Southampton haven’t gained their closing league sport of a calendar yr since 2002 (2-1 versus Sunderland), drawing six and shedding seven since then.
Palace, in the meantime, gained their closing league sport in every of 2021, 2022 and 2023 – they final did so in 4 consecutive calendar years between 1960 and 1963.
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
Crystal Palace – 57.5%
Southampton – 20.4%
Draw – 22.1%
