fifth consecutive Championship triumph was on the cards for Southampton in their New Year’s Day encounter with Norwich City at Carrow Road, where Adam Armstrong’s 13th goal of the second-tier campaign 20 minutes from time would ostensibly prove decisive.
Joshua Sargent had other ideas, though, drawing the Canaries level just eight minutes after Armstrong’s opener to deny Russell Martin’s charges a quintet of successive wins, although their remarkable unbeaten streak remains very much alive.
Since being seen off 2-1 by Middlesbrough on September 23 – a result which marked a fourth-straight defeat for the Saints – Martin’s men have strung together an exceptional 18-game sequence without suffering defeat, allowing them to cement a third-placed ranking in the Championship table as they bid to return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
However, the Saints faithful cannot be pre-occupied with thoughts of an immediate promotion back to the big time this weekend, as Southampton – one-time winners of the FA Cup back in 1976 – aim to avoid a third-round exit for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
The hosts have at least reached the fifth round in each of the last three editions, although they were the victims of a Grimsby Town giant killing at that stage last year, and Walsall would do well to take a leaf out of the Mariners’ FA Cup book.
Coincidentally, Walsall commenced their 2024 calendar with a New Year’s Day clash away to Grimsby, whose adventure to the FA Cup quarter-finals last term made plenty of headlines, and Mat Sadler’s side initially went a goal down courtesy of Danny Rose’s early
strike.However, Rose’s opener for Grimsby sparked a Walsall slaughter, as Saturday’s visitors to St Mary’s scored six times without reply in a 6-1 obliteration at Blundell Park, leaving Sadler to reflect on an “incredible afternoon” in which his side looked capable of scoring “at will”.
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destruction of Grimsby represented a third win on the trot for Walsall in League Two, and six of the visitors’ last seven games in all tournaments have ended in victory, including a 1-0 beating of Alfreton in an FA Cup second-round replay after an initial goalless draw.
Consequently, Walsall will be taking part in the third round of the FA Cup for just the second time in the past five seasons – they advanced to round four last year before falling to Leicester City’s superiority – but not since 2003 have they gone beyond the third round in successive seasons.
Furthermore, Walsall have never beaten Southampton at St Mary’s in a competitive setting, losing their most recent encounter on the South Coast 3-1 in May 2011, where a teenage Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was among the scorers for the Saints in that League One affair.
