Matheus Franca scored his first purpose in English soccer to earn some extent for Crystal Palace from a 1-1 draw with bottom-of-the-table Southampton.
The 21-year-old – who had not performed a Premier League recreation since March 2024 because of harm – was launched with just below quarter-hour to play at St Mary’s and headed in a Jefferson Lerma cross to attain the decisive equaliser after 92 minutes.
Till that time, Paul Onuachu’s first-half header had seemed to have secured a primary league win since November 2 for Saints, who stay 19 factors from security with simply eight video games left to play this season.
They may now be relegated as early as Sunday in the event that they lose to Spurs and Wolves beat Ipswich.
One small comfort for Ivan Juric’s aspect, nonetheless, is that they averted changing into solely the third staff in high flight historical past to lose 10 dwelling video games in succession.
Southampton are seemingly resigned to their destiny; Juric has stated it himself. “We’ll go down, however [we want to go down] with extra combat, extra dignity and extra the whole lot,” he stated after the 2-1 defeat to Wolves earlier than the March worldwide break.
Because of this, he employed a gung-ho strategy from the off at St Mary’s – however it virtually backfired instantly. Some slack defending allowed Jean-Philippe Mateta the liberty of the south coast to choose his spot from 20 yards and crash a shot again off the underside of the crossbar, with Aaron Ramsdale crushed.
The hosts didn’t return into their shells, nonetheless, and took a shock lead 20 minutes in, when Flynn Downes and Mateus Fernandes linked up brilliantly, earlier than the latter delivered a cross that Onuachu powered into the underside nook.
He later spurned two first rate probabilities to increase the lead, however not earlier than Mateta drew a pointy low save from Ramsdale after a luxurious management and beautiful shot on the flip.
Oliver Glasner made three modifications simply earlier than the hour, however Ben Chiwell, Daichi Kamada and Eddie Nketiah didn’t spark his aspect into motion. For lengthy durations, they seemed a shadow of the aspect that beat Fulham on the weekend to e-book a spot within the FA Cup quarter-finals.
By the ninetieth minute, the prospect of surpassing Derby’s report was inside touching distance for Saints, however, maybe naively, they nonetheless wished so as to add one other, simply to verify. It was symptomatic of their depressing season up to now that they might concede once more.
And that is precisely what occurred, as Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ headed clearance returned the ball to Lerma, who picked out Franca to move dwelling and break Southampton hearts yet again.
Juric: We deserved to win – I am actually sorry we did not
Southampton supervisor Ivan Juric:
“I am very happy with the way in which we performed at this time and really dissatisfied we did not get the win as a result of we did virtually the whole lot good.
“I am actually sorry for the followers and the blokes that they did not win as a result of I believe they deserved it.
“It was only a second. I stored feeling we had been in command of the sport, that we do not threat something. They did not create something or had been harmful.
“I had a very good feeling after which they had been good within the second, they had been good within the cross and different issues. I believe the gamers made a step ahead. I had an excellent feeling we might compete at this time.
“We acquire one level, we have now to organize properly the following recreation and if we play like this each recreation we are going to acquire the factors. We simply must discover a option to carry out on Sunday to make the followers comfortable and to attempt to do our greatest.”
Glasner admits FA Cup win at Fulham took its toll
Crystal Palace supervisor Oliver Glasner:
“It is an excellent level, particularly how the sport was. It was powerful, I believe everybody might see it.
“You possibly can see we weren’t at our high stage. I believe we had been mentally drained after the large win at Fulham.
“It is nothing to do with drained bodily, we had been contemporary however we had been mentally drained.
“We missed a little bit bit however I’m actually happy with the purpose at this time and happy with the group as a result of they felt it as properly.
“An emblem of this recreation was a free-kick from Eberechi Eze when he kicked the ball into the stand and I believe many groups would not have come again however this group of gamers got here collectively and pushed one another on the pitch.
“So I’m actually happy about this spirit, about this togetherness. And at this time it was extra about combating for this level. And that is why I am actually happy.
“We have now to remain humble, we won’t go in every single place and take it without any consideration we are going to get the win.”
