Ronald Koeman’s Southampton side welcome Danish champions FC Midtjylland to St Mary’s on Thursday night in the first leg of two in the Europa League play-off round. The winners over two legs will progress to the group stages of the competition – Southampton would be joining Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur amongst many other big-name teams.
FC Midtjylland’s owner, Matthew Benham has given his club a target of reaching the group stages of Europe’s second-tier competition three times by 2020 – so a win tonight would be a great start for them.
Here’s a guide to both clubs’ last three games:
Southampton FC
Last three results (most recent last): W, D, L
Koeman’s boys have steadily declined from a win in their previous Europa League qualification games vs Vitesse, to a loss against Everton last weekend.
Beating Vitesse 2-0 away from home gave The Dell Boys a 5-0 aggregate victory; the second leg goals came from Graziano Pelle and Saido Mane. Vitesse’s squad included on-loan Chelsea players Isaiah Brown, Lewis Baker and Nathan, who all played in the second leg, but Koeman’s side were too strong and swept the Dutch outfit aside.
The next game was a 2-2 draw with Newcastle United – the Saints’ first Premier League game of the season. Again, Graziano Pelle found the net before Newcastle took the lead with a goal either side of half-time. The equaliser was provided by Shane Long, who popped up in the 79th minute to salvage a point at St James Park.
The 3-0 loss against Everton was a huge disappointment as two first-half goals from Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku gave the Saints a lot to do before Ross Barkley made sure the three points were going back to Merseyside on the Toffees team bus with his second goal in as many games.
FC Midtjylland
Last three results (most recent last): W, W, D
Midtjylland will bring much better form into tonight’s crunch match, as they are unbeaten in their last three.
Like Southampton, the first of these three was another European game – but this one was a UEFA Champions League qualifier. They beat APOEL 1-0, but the 2-1 defeat in the first leg meant that the Cypriots went through on away goals, leaving the Danish champions to drop down into this phase of Europa League qualification. Midtjylland’s goal in their away victory came from centre-back Sviatchenko.
Their next game was a Danish Superliga game against currently 7th-placed Aalborg BK. It was another clean sheet for the champions as goals from midfielder Royer and young Nigerian striker Onuacho made sure of three points, leaving Midtjylland top of the table.
A third clean sheet came in their most recent game, this time a goalless draw against FC Copenhagen (Kobenhavn). The 1 point from the game further solidified their place at the top of the table; they are currently heading the league by 4 points. However, their lack of goals from their first-choice strikers, Rasmussen and Pusic, may worry them going into Thursday night’s game.
What the form means
We all know that form can go out the window on big occasions, but the two sides’ last three games do tell us two simple things. The first of these is that Graziano Pelle is perhaps the most likely to score – the Italian has the ground running this season. The second thing we have learned is that Midtjylland have a solid defence, so expect this affair to be cagey – possibly a 1-0 or 2-0 Southampton win, the latter of which we can imagine Koeman would gladly take right now.
