{"id":179444,"date":"2025-12-07T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179444\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T14:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:50:09","slug":"ireland-star-finn-azaz-is-chasing-a-southampton-legends-22-year-old-record-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179444\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland star Finn Azaz is chasing a Southampton legend\u2019s 22-year-old record this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ireland international scored his sixth goal in his last five appearances for the Championship side during Saturday\u2019s 3-1 win against Birmingham.<\/p>\n

14:09, 07 Dec 2025Updated 14:17, 07 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

Finn Azaz celebrates his goal against Birmingham City(Image: Matt Watson\/Southampton FC via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Finn Azaz continues to blaze a trail towards goal in Southampton colours – and on Saturday he scored his sixth goal for the Championship side when he opened the scoring in a 3-1 win against Birmingham City.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, they have all come in the Ireland<\/a> international’s last five appearances, while he has also coughed up two assists in those games.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s some turnaround for the 25-year-old, who made the move from Middlesbrough to Southampton<\/a> during the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n

Azaz<\/a> was snapped up for almost \u20ac15million after a dazzling season last year when he scored 12 goals in the Championship for \u2018Boro.<\/p>\n

However, he had a slow start to life at St Mary\u2019s, when he failed to find the net in his first 10 games.<\/p>\n

Under new boss Tonda Eckert, however, he has returned to the form that made him the Championship\u2019s most dangerous attacking player over the past season and a half.<\/p>\n

He is now up to 32 goal contributions<\/a> since the start of last season – more than anyone else in English football\u2019s second tier.<\/p>\n

And he could equal a 22-year-old club record on Tuesday night when the Saints host West Brom.<\/p>\n

His goal against Birmingham means he has scored in his last five Championship appearances for Southampton – the first Saints player to do so since Danny Ings in December 2019.<\/p>\n

If he finds the net again on Tuesday, he will be the first player to score in six consecutive games for the club since legend James Beattie way back in 2003.<\/p>\n

Beattie scored 76 goals in 235 appearances for the St Mary\u2019s outfit over a six-and-a-half-season spell, before he moved to Everton midway through the 2004\/05 campaign.<\/p>\n

His best individual term was during the 2002\/03 season when he scored 24 goals, including 23 in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

Azaz has some way to go to catch that, but with seven goals so far this time around, including one with Middlesbrough before his move in late August, he is over halfway towards beating his own personal best of 12.<\/p>\n

Southampton boss Eckert praised his attacking players – Azaz, Adam Armstrong and Leo Scienza and Tom Fellows after Saturday\u2019s Birmingham win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe prepare them to see where certain spaces might be opening up,\u201d said the 32-year-old German. \u201cI think we have been very good at finding big spaces in recent matches. They are things we present during the week and come to life on a matchday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to sign up to our soccer newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from the League of Ireland and beyond<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ireland international scored his sixth goal in his last five appearances for the Championship side during Saturday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[93124,97778,97776,61,60,97777,43,57217,36767],"class_list":{"0":"post-179444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","9":"tag-danny-ings","10":"tag-finn-azaz","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-middlesbrough-fc","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","16":"tag-southampton-fc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}