Matheus Franca scored his first goal in British football, scoring Crystal Palace points from a 1-1 draw at Southampton at the bottom of the table.
The 21-year-old, who had not played Premier League games since March 2024 due to an injury, was introduced in just under 15 minutes to play for St. Mary’s and headed to Jefferson Rel Macross after 92 minutes to score the decisive equalizer.
Up until that point, Paul Onuatchu’s first half header appeared to have secured his first league victory for the Saints since November 2nd. The Saints have kept 19 points from safety and have only eight games left this season.
But while everything was not bad for Ivan Juric’s part, they avoided becoming the third team in top flight history to lose 10 home games in a row.
It appears that Southampton is resigning to their fate. Yurik said it himself. “We’ll get off, [we want to go down] He said after a 2-1 defeat to the wolves before the international break in March.
As a result, he took a gung-Ho approach from the offskirt at St. Mary’s, but quickly backfired. With some SLACK DEVENDING, Jean-Philippe Mateta allowed freedom on the south coast, picking his place from 20 yards, allowing Aaron Ramsdale to be beaten and crashing the shot from the underside of the crossbar.
However, the hosts did not return to the shell, but when the Flynn Downs and Mateus Fernandez linked beautifully, the latter took a surprising lead in 20 minutes when they delivered a powered cross to the lower corner.
He later drove two decent chances to extend the lead, but not before Mateta made a sharp low save from Ramsdale after luxurious control and exquisite shots on the turn.
Oliver Glasner made three changes just before time, but Ben Chiwell, Kamada Daichi and Eddie Nketia did not take action on his side. For a long time, they saw the shadows of the side who beat Fulham over the weekend to book a place for the FA Cup quarterfinals.
By 90 minutes, the prospect of surpassing the Derby record was inspiring distance for the saints, but perhaps naively, they still wanted to add something else. What they once again admitted was the symptoms of their miserable seasons.
That’s exactly what happened as Taylor Harwood Bellis’ head clearance put the ball back into Lerma, picked Franca and went home, breaking Southampton Heart again.
