Southampton’s pre-season struggles continued on Tuesday as Russell Martin’s side suffered a 3-2 defeat against South-coast rivals Bournemouth, who claimed the bragging rights thanks to David Brooks’s 83rd-minute winner.
Quick-fire goals from Dango Ouattara and Ryan Christie gave the Cherries a 2-0 lead inside 17 minutes before Shea Charles and Stuart Armstrong levelled the score, but Southampton’s hard work ultimately counted for nothing as Brooks bagged the winner late on.
The Saints have now lost two of their four pre-season friendlies, picking up one win and one draw along the way, so it is fair to say that Martin has experienced an indifferent start to life at St. Mary’s after replacing Ruben Selles.
Following a 1-0 defeat to Portuguese giants Benfica, Southampton drew 1-1 with Turkish side Goztepe before defeating Selles’s Reading 4-2, but they failed to build on the victory over the Royals last time out.
Having suffered relegation from the Premier League last term, Southampton’s Championship campaign begins next Friday with an away trip to newly-promoted Sheffield Wednesday, so the Saints will be eager to lay down a marker on August 4.
Their visitors, meanwhile, have two further weeks of pre-season ahead of their Premier League campaign, after also winning promotion through the playoffs last time around.
After making a positive start to the term, the Hatters saw manager Nathan Jones depart for Southampton, and his replacement Rob Edwards, who arrived in mid-November, led them through a strong second half.
wrapping up a third-placed finish with 80 points on the board from their 46 outings, before they booked a place in the final at Wembley, coming from behind to beat Sunderland 3-2 on aggregate in their playoff semi-final.
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They then met Coventry City with a place in England’s top flight on the line, and after Jordan Clark’s first-half opener was cancelled out by a Gustavo Hamer leveller, the tie went to a penalty shootout, which the Hatters prevailed to confirm their climb to the Premier League.
Following that triumph in the capital, Edwards’s men returned for pre-season in early July and played their first friendly against Peterborough United, with Carlton Morris, John McAtee and Dion Pereira finding the net in a 3-1 victory, before they met Ipswich Town at Portman Road on Tuesday and played out a 1-1 draw as Morris was again on the scoresheet after Wes Burns’s early opener.
Now with four further friendlies to go before beginning their Premier League campaign away at Brighton & Hove Albion, following the postponement of their scheduled opening-day fixture against Burnley at Kenilworth Road, Luton Town will look to put a victory on the board to build confidence in the camp ahead of tests against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bochum in the coming days.
