Southampton will need to keep Erling Haaland under wraps if they stand any chance of a glorious FA Cup win against Manchester City.
Southampton have been handed a slice of positive news already, ahead of their FA Cup semi final showdown with Manchester City.
Rodri will not be fit to play a part in the Wembley clash, with Pep Guardiola noting that it isn’t worth risking the Ballon d’Or winner, who has a groin issue.
Southampton will feel slightly more at ease with the task ahead of them, as they know they won’t have to face a midfielder known for controlling games and barely giving opponents a sniff.
Still, they will likely need to think up a plan as to how they’ll contain Erling Haaland for the testing 90 minutes ahead, with the Nordic machine helping himself to plenty of goals, when facing the South Coast side previously.
Haaland’s goalscoring record vs Southampton
There’s very few teams who have been in the Premier League, while Haaland has resided at City, that hasn’t felt the unbelievable goalscoring wrath of the superhuman number nine.
At the time of writing, the two-time Premier League winner has a breathtaking 159 goals from 193 City games, with his record against Southampton reading as bagging four strikes from five previous outings.
Three of those goals would come during the 2022/23 season, when Southampton slumped down to the Championship under many failed managerial regimes, with Haaland getting in on the goalscoring act in 4-0 and 4-1 wins in Premier League action.
He wasn’t quite as lethal in front of goal during the 2024/25 season, playing against the South Coast outfit, who finished rock bottom of the division, with only one goal powered home.
Haaland was actually shut out completely the last time the two teams played each other, in a drab 0-0 draw at St. Mary’s.
Taylor Harwood-Bellis was a part of that resilient defence that faced the 49-time Norway international on a rare off-day, as he prepares to face the 6-foot-5 animal again, who has three goals from only two games in the illustrious competition this campaign.
Tonda Eckert has spoken to the media, in the build-up to the much-talked-about FA Cup showdown, about the tough mission ahead in silencing Haaland, with the German offering his unique perspective on how to stifle the one-time Borussia Dortmund marksman.
Eckert’s unique perspective on thwarting Haaland
Eckert has been a media darling in the build-up to this one-off FA Cup encounter, with the Premier League-aspiring head coach even speaking to The Athletic before his team takes to the field against the top-flight frontrunners.
He does deserve all this attention, as he has turned Southampton from relegation fodder in the second-tier, to genuine promotion candidates, with the Saints only three points off second in the Championship table at the time of writing.
Eckert will want another FA Cup scalp on his early managerial resume, though, and he has opened up on how he plans to suppress Haaland on Saturday.
He said, in a rather enlightening interview with the Daily Echo: “There are more players to stop him, but he’s usually at the end of finishing sequences. You can only stop him as a collective.
“You have to be clear on how you want to defend if the ball is out on the wing and make sure that you don’t get dragged out because that opens up the centre.
“If we look at our last 20 games, we’ve not conceded much from open play. It’s not that easy to score against us, but the bar rises again here.”
Further stating that he will lean on his past experience of coaching in Italy, when it comes to marking dangerous strikers in the box, to try and nullify the Scandinavian’s clear threats, it’s clear – from this interview – that Eckert is an extremely meticulous figure.
He will only be shoved further into the limelight if he spearheads a famous FA Cup win at Wembley, but Haaland will just be hoping for another goal-filled game for the heavily fancied visitors from Manchester.
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