Southampton vs Newcastle United Preview

Southampton and Newcastle will square up this Tuesday in the first leg of the semifinals of the 2023 Carabao Cup.

The Saints come into this tie looking to cause another upset after successfully dispatching Manchester City in the previous round. That win continued their positive run in cup competitions under Nathan Jones.

The young British manager has overseen a mini-revival at the club, especially in cup competitions (FA Cup and EFL) where his side are still unbeaten. The signs of improvement are evident as the hosts come into this tie with one loss in their last four games. That loss was a narrow 1-0 loss to Aston Villa in the Premier League, ending a run of three consecutive wins.

While they remain rooted at the bottom of the PL table, they will be in confident mood going into this game. The fact that they have the EFL’s joint-top scorer in their ranks will also be an advantage. Ché Adams is the joint-top scorer in this season’s EFL Cup with four goals, contributing to the Saints losing only one match in the competition when getting on the scoresheet (W3, D1).

However, they will have to be tighter at the back to stand a chance here as they have conceded the first goal in all but one of their last 13 matches across all tournaments.

Meanwhile, Newcastle continued their impressive run of form last weekend with a 16th straight game without defeat coming in a goalless draw against Crystal Palace.

The Magpies are in the midst of some outstanding form across four months that has seen them lose just one of their last 19 competitive fixtures (W12, D6), collecting a remarkable 13 clean sheets in the process.

They qualified for this stage of the tournament thanks to a 2-0 win over Leicester City and so will fancy their chances of edging out a much weaker Premier League opponent.

However, they are winless in their last two away matches when playing PL opposition in the EFL Cup (D1, L1) but their recent record against the Saints is good, with Newcastle losing only one of the last 11 H2H meetings in all competitions (W7, D3)  The most recent of those wins was a 4-1 PL triumph at St Mary’s last November, so Eddie Howe’s side can expect another good performance here.