Two teams who could soon be swapping divisions will square off in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Saturday afternoon, as Premier League basement club Southampton play host to Championship promotion hopefuls Burnley at St Mary's.
The Saints and the Clarets meet for the first time since April 2022 when the latter beat the former 2-0 at Turf Moor in the top flight.
Match preview
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For the first time since November 2 last year, Southampton celebrated a Premier League victory last weekend as they beat fellow strugglers Ipswich Town 2-1 at Portman Road - just their second top-flight win in 24 matches this season.
Paul Onuachu's 87th-minute winner secured all three points for the Saints and a much-needed first league win under new head coach Ivan Juric at the seventh time of asking, although their chances of pulling of the greatest of escapes and avoiding the drop are still hanging by the thinnest of threads.
Sitting rock bottom with nine points and 10 adrift of safety, Juric believes that exceeding Derby County's unwanted 11-point Premier League record from 2007-08 is a "bad motivation" for Southampton in their quest to climb out of the bottom three, and he has simply urged his players to play with "heart and passion" to win matches.
The Saints must now shift their focus back to the FA Cup and having already beaten Swansea City 3-0 in the third round this term, they will attempt to progress from the fourth round of the competition for the fifth successive season.
Southampton - FA Cup winners in 1976 - head into Saturday's contest having won eight of their last 10 home matches in the FA Cup, winning each of their last three by an aggregate score of 10-0, while they have also come out on top in their only two previous encounters with Burnley in this competition - winning 2-1 away back in 1908 (first round) and 4-3 on home soil in 2014 (third round).
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Burnley are on course to become one of the best defensive sides in the recent history of English football after they kept their 22nd clean sheet of the Championship campaign, and ninth in a row, in a narrow 1-0 home win over Oxford City on Tuesday night.
The Clarets have remarkably conceded only nine league goals in 31 matches, the fewest of any English league team, 10 fewer than the next strongest defence in England (Leeds United - 19), and five fewer than any side in the top-two tiers in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, while they currently occupy an automatic promotion place in the Championship table, sitting second and five points behind leaders Leeds.
Despite this, Burnley supporters have been left frustrated by Scott Parker's uninspiring brand of football and the lack of goals that his team are scoring; the Clarets have netted more than one goal in only 10 of their 33 games across 90 minutes in all competitions and only three time have they scored three or more goals in a single match.
Burnley managed to score three goals in their 3-1 victory at Reading in the FA Cup third round last month, although two of those were netted in extra time, by Zian Flemming who has been involved in four goals across his last two matches in the competition (three goals, one assist).
The Clarets travel to St Mary's on Saturday having lost just two of their last 11 meetings with Southampton (all in the Premier League), but success against the Saints is not a given, as they have been eliminated in nine of their last 11 FA Cup ties against top-flight opposition while playing in a lower division.
Team News
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Southampton defenders Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Jack Stephens were forced off in the win at Ipswich with respective ankle and calf injuries and have since been ruled out Saturday's cup tie.
Ross Stewart (calf), Cameron Archer (adductor), Juan Larios, Ryan Fraser (both unspecified), Ryan Manning and Flynn Downes (both knocks) are also in the treatment room, but both Nathan Wood and Tyler Dibling are fit and available for selection.
Now that Adam Armstrong has joined West Bromwich Albion on loan, Onuachu is likely to continue up front and could be supported in attack by one or two of Dibling, Kamaldeen Sulemana, Albert Gronbaek or Mateus Fernandes.
As for Burnley, Parker has admitted that this weekend's game is "an opportunity for us to freshen things up" and "give players minutes that haven't played as much" this season.
The likes of Vaclav Hladky, Oliver Sonne, Joe Worrall, Joe Bauress and Ashley Barnes, who all started in the third-round win over Reading, will all be pushing for a recall, while new signing Marcus Edwards is in contention to make his debut.
Five players who will not be involved are Mike Tresor (unspecified), Aaron Ramsey (knee), Jordan Beyer (hamstring), Enock Agyei and Nathan Redmond (both leg) as they continue to recover from injury, while Luca Koleosho and Josh Brownhill will be assessed ahead of kickoff.
Southampton possible starting lineup:
Ramsdale; Bree, Bednarek, Wood; Sugawara, Smallbone, Ugochukwu, Welington; Sulemana, Dibling; Onuachu
Burnley possible starting lineup:
Hladky; Sonne, Worrall, Esteve, Pires; Cullen, Bauress; Edwards, Mejbri, Sarmiento; Flemming
We say: Southampton 2-1 Burnley
The thought of facing any team who has conceded just one goal in over 15 hours of football is a daunting one, but Southampton can be confident of making the net ripple against Burnley having scored in six of their last seven matches.
With Parker set to make a number of changes to his Clarets lineup, a potentially stronger Saints outfit may just do enough to get their second morale-boosting win in the space of a week to progress to the fifth round.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Oliver Thomas
